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TRINITY   CHURCH. 


// 


Walks  in  our  Churchyards 


Walks  in  Our  Churchyards 


OLD  NEIV  YORK 


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FELIX 

OLDBOY 

(JOHN     FLAVEL   MINES,    LL.D.) 


NEW  YORK 
GEO.  GOTTSBERGER  PECK.  Publisher 

II    MURRAY   STREET 
1896 


(^5 


4ritbre^{  akccordlr^g  ^o  Ajct.bf'fongress,  in  the  year  1895, 
'      By  GEO.  GOTTSBERGER  PECK, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


NOTE 


This  volume  is  compiled  to  preserve  in  permanent 
form  the  sketches  entitled 

"  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS," 

which,  undertaken  at  our  request,  appeared  in  the 
Trinity  Record  during  1890-92. 

Felix  Oldboy's  work  is  too  well  known  to  require 
either  preface  or  introduction.  All  who  appreciate 
studies  and  recollections  of  Old  New  York  will  recall 
with  pleasure  how  much  his  facile  pen  has  done  to 
rescue  associations  from  oblivion,  which  otherwise 
would  have  been  swept  away  with  the  structures  with 
which  they  were  connected. 

It  is  well  said  that  we  cannot  buy  with  gold  these 

old   associations.     It  therefore  seems  to  us  timely  to 

place  in  permanent  form  these  recollections  of  the  past, 

which    cling   to   the   graves   and    tombstones   in   the 

churchyards  of  Trinity  Parish. 

FiTzHuGH  Whitehouse. 
Henry  Cotheal  Swords. 

Christmas,  i8g^. 


m;126045 


-  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

No.        I. -TRINITY  CHURCHYARD i 

II.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD    ......  15 

III.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 29 

IV.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD    ......  47 

v.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 61 

VI.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 74 

VII.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 87 

VIII.—TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 103 

IX.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 116 

X.— ST.  PAUL'S  CHURCHYARD     ....      130 

XI.— ST.   PAUL'S  CHURCHYARD 141 

XII.— ST.  JOHN'S  CHURCHYARD    ....       152 
XIII.— TRINITY  CHURCHYARD 165 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

TRINITY  CHURCH, Frontispiece 

ST.   PAUL'S  CHAPEL, 47 

ST.  JOHN'S  CHAPEL, 87 

TRINITY  MISSION  HOUSE 141 

TRINITY  HOSPITAL, 165 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 


I. 

An  English  gentleman,  Mr.  John  Lambert,  who 
visited  New  York  in  1807,  when  the  entire  city- 
lay  below  Canal  Street,  was  severely  critical  in 
regard  to  the  churchyards  on  Broadway.  In  his 
diary,  after  speaking  of  Trinity  Church  and  St. 
Paul's  as  "  both  handsome  structures,"  he  added  : 
"The  adjoining  churchyards,  which  occupy  a 
large  space  of  ground  railed  in  from  the  street 
and  crowded  with  tombstones,  are  far  from  being 
agreeable  spectacles  in  such  a  populous  city." 
The  population  of  New  York  in  that  year,  as  he 
gives  it,  was  83,530,  and  in  our  more  modern  eyes 
would  betoken  rather  an  overgrown  village  than 
a  metropolis. 

In  still  another  part  of  his  journal,  Mr.  Lam- 
bert returns  again  to  the  assault  on  the  church- 
yards, and  insists  that  they  are  "  unsightly 
exhibitions."  *'  One  would  think,"  he  says, 
"  there  was  a  scarcity  of  land  in  America  to  see 
such  large  pieces  of  ground  in  one  of  the  finest 
streets  of  New  York  occupied  by  the  dead.     The 


2  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

continual  view  of  such  a  crowd  of  white  and 
brown  tombstones  and  monuments  as  is  exhibited 
in  the  Broadway  must  tend  very  much  to  depress 
the  spirits."  Now,  if  it  is  well  to  see  ourselves  as 
others  see  us,  we  have  here  a  very  plain-spoken 
opinion  about  our  city  graveyards  from  the  pen  of 
a  traveled  Englishman,  who  generally  spoke  in 
terms  of  nothing  but  praise  concerning  the  young 
metropolis,  its  inhabitants  and  their  customs.  But 
it  is  a  poor  rule  that  will  not  work  both  ways,  and 
the  fastidious  critic  might  have  found  it  profitable 
to  carry  a  mirror  in  his  trunk. 

As  a  citizen,  and  not  a  stranger,  I  find  few  so 
attractive  spots  as  these  churchyards  on  Broad- 
way. People  write  sentimentally  about  sleeping 
under  the  grasses  and  daisies  of  the  country,  and 
one  good  Bishop  years  ago  dropped  into  poetry 
and  requested  to  be  so  interred.  But  it  has  al- 
ways struck  me  that  the  rural  cemetery  is  intoler- 
ably lonesome.  Even  if  the  sleepers  there  do  not 
need  the  comradeship  of  the  living,  it  is  undeni- 
able that  the  grass  is  as  green,  the  sunshine  as 
golden,  and  the  flowers  as  fragrant  in  the  glebe 
around  St.  Paul's  and  Trinity,  as  where  no  piles 
of  brick  and  mortar  have  blotted  out  the  fields. 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  3 

The  dead  have  company  here.  The  feet  of  the 
living  pass  up  and  down  the  street  hard  by,  and 
among  these  footfalls  are  those  of  descendants  of 
the  quiet  ones — of  men  who  admire  their  record 
and  women  who  love  their  memory.  They  are 
sleeping,  too,  in  the  shadows  of  the  homes  in 
which  they  lived  and  were  happy.  The  roar  of 
business  is  around  them  as  they  knew  it  in  life, 
and  once  a  week  comes  the  quiet  of  the  Sunday 
they  observed.  If  no  longer  the  waves  of  the 
river  break  against  the  pebbly  beach  that  at  first 
bounded  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  and  through  the 
bluff  which  looked  down  into  the  waters  of  the 
Hudson  back  of  old  Trinity,  a  street  now  passes, 
with  two  more  streets  of  artificial  make  beyond, 
the  burial  place  of  the  dead  is  there  unchanged. 

I  have  long  believed  that  Trinity  Parish  has 
done  New  York  no  one  greater  benefit  than  in 
leaving  the  breathless  dead  to  be  companions  to 
the  thoughtless  living.  It  is  true,  O  eminent 
philanthropist,  that  these  acres  might  have  been 
sold  for  many  pence  and  the  money  given  to  the 
poor ;  equally  true,  Sir  Speculator,  that  the  dust 
of  the  dead  could  not  have  resented  being  carted 
away  to  other  dust  heaps,  but  something  would 


4  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

have  been  lost  to  the  living  that  no  power  of 
earth  could  restore.  I  never  pass  these  colonies 
of  tombstones  without  thanking  the  men  who 
have  stood  sentinel  over  them  and  kept  them  in 
place.  As  they  stand  in  their  impressive  silence, 
tall  shaft  and  crumbling  slab,  they  are  more  elo- 
quent than  any  sermons,  more  full  of  tears  and 
pathos  than  any  print  can  create,  more  prompt  to 
teach  faith  and  hope  than  so  many  volumes  of 
dogmatic  theology.  They  who  sleep  beneath  are 
not  the  dead,  but  the  living.  We  know  about 
them  ;  have  read  of  their  faults  and  their  virtues; 
have  been  told  how  they  dared  and  endured  ;  have 
looked  into  their  eyes  in  galleries  of  old  portraits, 
touched  the  hem  of  their  garments  still  cherished 
by  their  grandchildren,  held  in  our  hands  the  little 
battered  spoon  in  which  their  childish  teeth  made 
dents  so  many  years  ago.  Go  to !  We  are  the 
dreamers  and  they  are  the  folk  of  action.  You 
shall  be  passing  any  night  when  the  moon  is 
shining  on  these  grasses  and  look  through  the 
iron  rails  that  keep  out  a  disturbing  world,  and 
every  stone  shall  cry  out  to  you  from  its  sculptur- 
ings  and  make  you  long  to  know  the  story  of  the 
ashes   that  was  once  a  man  or  woman  of  your 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  5 

world,  and  then  you  shall  turn  away  and  gaze 
upon  the  painted  names  of  men  that  gleam  from 
the  walls  of  buildings  across  the  way  and  that 
eagerly  announce  their  business  to  the  world,  and 
you  shall  feel  no  such  throb  of  sympathy  nor 
sense  of  weird  comradeship  as  when  your  face 
was  set  towards  the  dead.  Did  I  not  say  that  we 
are  the  dreamers  ? 

There  is  no  pleasanter  spot  in  New  York  than 
the  churchyard  of  old  Trinity  on  a  quiet  Sunday 
morning  in  the  Summer.  There  are  flowers  and 
grasses,  the  shade  of  graceful  elms,  fresh  air  and 
the  twittering  of  birds — even  the  oriole  and  the 
robin  still  come  back  there  every  year  in  spite  of 
the  aggressive  sparrow — and  there  is  no  end  of 
companionship.  It  is  a  companionship  which  I 
like,  because  it  is  open  and  free.  Here  every 
man,  woman  and  child,  except  the  unquiet  prowl- 
ers above  ground,  -presents  to  our  eyes  a  card  of 
granite  or  marble,  gravely  telling  his  or  her  name, 
age  and  a  few  other  particulars  set  forth,  more  or 
less  elaborately — a  quaint  custom,  but  not  a  bad 
one  for  the  living  to  adopt,  if  they  would  be 
equally  frank  about  it. 

Even    in   the  days  when  the   present   church 


6  WALKS  IN   OtJR  CHURCHYARDS. 

building  was  new — more  than  forty  years  ago  by 
the  calendar — I  found  no  more  pleasant  place  in 
which  to  pass  a  half  hour  as  a  boy.  It  was  a 
more  unkempt  place  then,  than  now,  and  blue- 
birds and  thrushes  were  more  frequent  visitors.  I 
found  an  endless  pleasure  in  tracing  the  inscrip- 
tions on  the  tombstones,  and  it  was  not  long  be- 
fore I  had  familiar  acquaintances,  heroes  and 
heroines,  in  every  corner.  Huge  was  my  delight, 
too,  when,  with  two  or  three  companions,  we 
could  escape  the  eye  of  old  David  Lyon,  the  sex- 
ton, and  hie  down  into  the  crypt  beneath  the 
chancel.  There  we  saw  yawning  mouths  of 
vaults,  revealing  to  our  exploring  gaze  bits  of  an- 
cient coffins  and  forgotten  mortality,  and  we  poked 
about  these  subterranean  corridors  with  dusty 
jackets  and  whispered  words,  finding  its  atmos- 
phere of  mould  and  mystery  a  strange  delight. 
For  somehow  the  unknown  sleepers,  then  who 
seemed  to  have  no  means  of  making  themselves 
known — unless  it  was  through  the  musty  tomes 
of  Trinity's  burial  records — took  strongest  hold 
upon  our  sympathies,  to  say  nothing  of  our 
curiosity. 

Everybody  who  passes  old  St.  Paul's  can  read 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  7 

for  himself  the  patriotism  of  General  Montgomery, 
the  civic  virtues  of  Thomas  Addis  Emmet  and  the 
eminence  of  Dr.  McNevin,  for  monument  and 
shaft  tell  the  story.  So  all  visitors  to  the  church- 
yard of  old  Trinity  easily  learn  which  are  the 
tombstones  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  Captain  Law- 
rence, of  the  Chesapeake,  or  William  Bradford, 
the  first  Colonial  printer,  and  where  rest  the  bones 
of  quiet  Robert  Fulton,  the  inventor,  or  dashing 
Phil  Kearney ;  but  there  is  no  herald  of  the  ordi- 
nary dead — of  those  who  were  simply  upright 
men  and  good  women  in  their  day,  and  there 
could  be  none  of  the  unknown  dead  who  are  said 
to  far  outnumber  the  lucky  minority,  the  front 
doors  to  whose  graves  still  stand  and  yet  pre- 
serve their  door  plate,  though  the  latch-key  is 
gone. 

The  unknown  dead !  Perhaps  I  dwell  upon 
them  because  in  their  ranks  is  the  only  one  of  my 
own  family  who  sleeps  beneath  the  spire  of 
Trinity  Church.  So  often,  when  I  have  slipped 
into  the  churchyard  for  a  little  respite  from  the 
world  and  the  company  of  those  who  shall  be  my 
companions  in  the  to-morrow,  I  think  of  my  little 
uncle,  Oscar,  who  died  in  the  homestead  of  his 


S  Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

mother's  family  in  Catharine  Street  nearly  ninety 
years  ago  and  was  buried  in  this  churchyard. 
Eldest  born  of  the  children,  at  five  years  of  age 
his  little  feet  went  bravely  climbing  the  hills  of 
Beulah  all  alone.  So  often  there  comes  to  me  a 
glimpse  of  a  little  golden  head,  a  quaint  little 
figure  in  old-time  coat  edged  with  lace — you 
ought  to  see  his  miniature  for  yourself  and  smile 
back  into  its  sweet,  serious  baby  eyes — and  I 
wonder  under  which  sod  lies  his  tiny  mite  of  dust 
and  whether  he  knows  that  I  am  thinking  of  him 
as  I  pass.  Sometimes  I  wonder  if  he  ever  regrets 
that  he  did  not  live  to  grow  gray  and  scarred  or 
whether  he  is  not  glad  that  he  went  to  sleep  just 
as  the  sun  rose  over  the  hilltop  of  his  life,  blessed 
by  his  mother's  tears  and  his  father's  kiss.  These 
things  come  to  my  thought  even  in  the  most  un- 
quiet hour  of  the  day,  after  I  have  passed  the 
iron  gates  that  keep  the  sordid  outside  life  away 
from  me,  and  they  do  me  good,  I  know.  So 
much  does  one  little  grave,  that  blossoms  all  un- 
known in  this  garden  of  God,  have  power  to  teach 
things  lovely  and  of  good  report.  Even  for  the 
grasses  that  grow  unidentified  over  my  own  dead 
I  bless  the  church  that  has  witnessed  to  a  good 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  9 

profession  in  the  fight  with  mammon  and  that  has 
kept  God's  acre  green  in  city  streets,  that  it  might 
preach  to  men's  withered  hearts  of  sunshine,  the 
soft  dews  and  eternal  peace. 

Everybody  knows  the  story  of  Alexander 
Hamilton's  tragic  death,  and  almost  every  stranger 
who  enters  Trinity  Church  yard  asks  to  have  his 
grave  pointed  out.  But  few  know  the  tragedy 
that  sent  his  eldest  son  to  his  death  at  nineteen, 
or  ask  to  know  which  is  his  tomb.  It  was  in  1801 
that  George  L.  Backer,  a  brilliant  young  member 
of  the  New  York  bar  and  ardent  friend  of  Aaron 
Burr,  delivered  the  Fourth  of  July  oration,  and 
during  the  political  campaign  in  the  Fall  his  elo- 
quence was  derided  by  young  PhiHp  Hamilton,  in 
the  presence  of  a  lady,  and  a  duel  followed.  It 
was  the  fashion  of  the  day  to  fight,  and  while  the 
famous  actor,  Thomas  Apthorpe  Cooper,  was 
second  to  Eacker,  David  S.  Jones,  private  secre- 
tary to  Governor  Jay,  did  the  same  friendly  office 
for  young  Hamilton.  The  latter  fell  mortally 
wounded,  dying  the  next  morning,  and  was  buried 
in  Trinity  churchyard.  Young  Eacker  died  of 
consumption  before  three  years  had  passed — be- 
fore the  elder  Hamilton  had  also  fallen  victim  to 


lO  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

the  hideous  custom  he  had  sanctioned  in  behalf  of 
his  son — and  is  buried  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard, 
on  the  Vesey  Street  side.  There  is  no  difference 
between  the  blades  of  grass  that  blossom  out 
from  their  dust  in  either  churchyard  every  spring. 

Statistics  are  a  pet  abhorrence  of  mine  in  age, 
as  arithmetic  used  to  be  in  youth,  so  it  shall  be 
sufficient  to  say  just  here  that  Trinity  Church  was 
first  opened  for  worship  in  1697,  ^^^  ^^^^  the 
original  building  was  enlarged  in  1735-36  and 
burnt  down  in  1776.  The  burial  ground  was 
granted  by  the  city  in  1703,  on  condition  that  it 
be  neatly  fenced  and  that  the  fees  of  burial  be 
limited  to  ^s.  6d.  for  grown  persons  and  is.  6d. 
for  those  under  twelve  years  of  age.  It  was  the 
choice  spot  of  burial  for  the  English  population 
of  the  city  up  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution  and 
afterwards. 

I  love  to  read  in  the  newspapers  of  the  period, 
the  story  of  those  who  were  interred  here  during 
this  period.  The  names  are  but  a  sound  in  our 
ears,  and  they  are  among  the  unknown,  but  if  the 
quaint  obituaries  are  to  be  credited,  they  have 
risen  to  royal  rank  beyond  the  fogs  and  mists  of 
Jordan.     On  the   19th  of  May,  1740,   died  Mrs, 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.         n 

Clarke,  wife  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the 
province,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  listen  to  her 
praises,  as  told  by  the  newspapers  of  the  day : 
"  She  was  a  most  Affectionate  and  Dutiful  Wife, 
a  Tender  and  Indulgent  Parent,  a  Kind  Mistress 
and  sincere  Friend ;  she  was  a  fine,  graceful  Per- 
son, a  most  agreeable  companion  and  of  that 
Sweetness  and  Calmness  of  Temper  that  nothing 
could  ruffle  it  or  draw  a  hard  Expression  from 
her.  She  never  failed  of  attending  on  the  Public 
Worship  of  her  Maker,  when  her  Health  would 
permit,  and  she  dyed  with  that  Calmness,  Serenity 
and  Resignation,  that  showed  her  truly  Christian." 
The  language  is  stilted,  but  is  it  not  a  sweet  and 
satisfying  picture  ?  One  could  wish  to  have  been 
present  at  her  funeral.  It  was  a  rare  spectacle  for 
the  little  city.  "  On  Thursday  evening  she  was 
interred  in  a  Vault  in  Trinity  Church,  with  Re- 
mains of  her  Mother  and  the  late  Lady  Cornbury, 
in  the  most  handsome  and  decent  manner ;  her 
Pall  being  supported  by  part  of  His  Majesty's 
counsel  for  this  Province,  and  some  of  the  Minis- 
ters of  the  General  Assembly,  and  attended  by  all 
the  Ministers  and  most  of  the  Principal  Inhabi- 
tants of  the  city  (minute  guns  being  fired  from 


12  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

the  Fort  and  sundry  Vessels  in  the  Harbour,  dur- 
ing the  Solemnity).  And  as  it  was  a  pleasure  to 
Her  in  her  Life  to  feed  the  Hungry,  so  on  the 
day  of  the  Funeral,  a  Loaf  of  Bread  was  given  to 
every  Poor  Person  that  would  receive  it." 

Side  by  side  with  this  sweet  portraiture  cf  **  a 
perfect  woman  nobly  planned,"  should  be  placed 
the  notice  of  the  death  of  "  the  Worshipful  and 
worthy  John  Cruger,  Esq.,  Mayor  of  this  City, 
whose  affable,  humane  and  most  obliging  Temper 
and  Deportment  justly  gained  him  the  Respect 
and  esteem  of  all."  He  died  in  August,  1744, 
and  was  '*  very  decently  interred "  in  Trinity 
churchyard.  Says  the  Weekly  Post  Boy :  "He 
was  a  most  tender  and  indulgent  Parent,  a  kind 
Master,  an  upright  Magistrate  and  a  good  Friend  ; 
and  those  to  whom  he  was  known,  must  acknowl- 
edge that  he  had  and  practised  many  excellent 
quaHties,  wortliy  of  imitation  ;  and  as  he  always 
lived  a  sober,  religious,  good  Life,  so  he  died  with 
great  Calmness  and  Resignation." 

There  was  another  notable  funeral  in  old  Trin- 
ity when  Sir  Henry  Moore,  the  only  native 
American  who  was  ever  appointed  governor  of 
the  Province,  was  buried  with  great  pomp  **  in 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 3 

the  chancel."  This  took  place  in  January,  1768, 
while  the  stamp  act  disturbances  were  at  their 
height  A  visitor  to  the  city  about  ten  years  pre- 
viously says,  that  "the  church  stands  very  pleas- 
antly upon  the  banks  of  Hudson's  River  and  has 
a  large  cemetery  on  each  side,  inclosed  in  the 
front  by  a  painted  paled  fence."  Exteriorly  it 
was  a  fine  edifice,  148  feet  in  length,  including 
tower  and  chancel,  and  72  feet  in  width,  with  a 
steeple  175  feet  high.  The  inscription  which  now 
stands  over  the  great  door  opening  upon  Broad- 
way was  then  placed  over  the  door  facing  the 
river.  A  glimpse  within  shows  a  noteworthy 
structure  for  a  little  city  of  15,000  inhabitants. 
"The  church,"  says  the  visitor  just  quoted,  "is, 
within,  ornamented  beyond  any  other  place  of 
public  worship  among  us.  The  head  of  the  chan- 
cel is  adorned  with  an  altarpiece,  and  opposite  to 
it,  at  the  other  end  of  the  building,  is  the  organ. 
The  tops  of  the  pillars,  which  support  the  gal- 
leries, are  decked  with  the  gilt  busts  of  angels 
winged.  From  the  ceiling  are  suspended  two 
glass  branches,  on  the  walls  hang  the  arms  of 
some  of  its  principal  benefactors.  The  aisles  are 
paved  with  flat  stones."      A  funeral  service    of 


14  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

state,  with  all  the  pomp  and  trappings  of  such 
ceremonial,  must  have  been  a  most  impressive 
sight,  especially  when,  as  was  often  the  case,  the 
burial  took  place  by  night.  Yet  the  choice  dust 
thus  pompously  and  carefully  put  away  on  the 
stone  shelf  of  a  vault  did  not  rest  in  more  secure 
faith  and  hope  than  the  more  common  dust 
around,  which  the  roots  of  the  elm  entwined  and 
from  which  the  rose  bushes  and  early  violets  drew 
their  nourishment. 

As  I  close  this  article  the  bells  of  Easter  week 
are  still  speaking  of  resurrection  and  from  the 
sod  of  the  churchyard  a  myriad  fresh  buds  reach 
up  eagarly  to  add  their  witness,  and  a  robin  on 
the  brown  branch  of  an  old  elm  is  twittering  to 
its  sweUing  tips,  all  ripe  with  a  wealth  of  green 
leaves.  In  my  veins  the  blood  of  youth  is  cours- 
ing as  delightedly  as  if  I  had  not  long  since  flung 
a  half  century  of  life  behind  me.  And  pausing 
as  I  passed  out  of  the  churchyard,  at  the  border 
line  of  sod  and  flagging,  I  look  up  through  the 
sunshine  to  see  the  shining  faces  of  my  friends 
who  have  been  so  long  sleeping  in  this  enclosure, 
and  I  know  that  their  hearts  are  not  older  than 
mine,  while  their  bodies  have  been  dipped  in  the 
river  of  eternal  youth. 


II. 

April  showers  have  brought  May  flowers.  All 
through  the  land  the  woods  are  filled  with  the 
fragrance  of  wild  honeysuckle  and  violets,  and 
through  the  overarching  sky  of  green  leaves  the 
blossoms  of  the  dogwood  shine  in  their  whiteness 
like  so  many  stars.  In  narrow  city  gardens  the 
lilacs  have  begun  to  bloom,  and  the  wistaria  vines 
droop  with  their  burdens  of  clustering  flowers. 
Here,  in  the  sleeping  places  of  the  dead.  Spring 
has  also  put  on  her  resurrection  robes.  Upon 
the  elms  the  safiron  buds  have  shot  out  tiny  taper 
fingers  of  living  green,  as  if  the  trees  were  ready 
to  clap  their  hands  and  rejoice  that  the  sunshine 
of  Summer  is  coming  again,  while  the  grasses  be- 
neath their  shadows,  which  cover  quiet  hearts  that 
were  restless  enough  in  life,  are  eloquent  with  the 
lesson  of  seed-time  and  harvest  The  seed-time 
of  earth  is  the  best  pledge  of  the  harvest  of 
heaven,  outside  of  a  divine  revelation.  Surely 
the  remembrance  or  earth's  loves  and  losses,  its 
songs  and  its  tears,  its  laughter  and  its  prayers, 
its  fire- side  circles  and  its  happy  homes,  is  proof 
that  all  is  not  ended  here,  but  that  in  the  here- 

15 


l6  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

after  the  broken  household  group  shall  be  made 
complete,  and  that  we  shall  repeat  in  heaven  all 
of  earth  but  its  tears  and  its  graves. 

This  is  a  very  democratic  congregation  which 
sleeps  outside  the  walls  of  old  Trinity.  Death, 
like  politics,  makes  strange  bed-fellows.  Within 
the  church  rises  up  daily  the  prayer  for  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  and  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  cross  that  crowns  the  spire  the  ashes  of 
saint  and  sinner  make  undistinguishable  dust. 
God  drops  his  mantle  of  forgiveness  upon  all,  in 
the  guise  of  daisies  in  summer  and  snowflakes  in 
winter.  Is  it  not  strange  that  man  cannot  afford 
to  do  as  much  as  his  Maker  ?  There  came  to  me 
a  letter,  once,  to  say  that  if  I  eulogized  a  certain 
man  who  sleeps  in  the  old  churchyard,  the  dead 
would  be  assailed.  O,  pitiful  weakness  !  A  dag- 
ger thrust  into  a  handful  of  dust  is  but  a  poor 
means  of  vengeance.  On  this  sweet  May  morn- 
ing, as  I  walk  through  the  ancient  acre  of  the 
dead,  I  thank  God  that  there  is  in  my  heart  no 
room  for  hatred,  either  of  the  living  or  of  those 
who  have  passed  beyond  the  swellings  of  Jordan. 
I  have  outlived  them  all.  Let  him  who  would 
also  walk  here  in  peace  pause  for  a  moment  at 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 7 

the  gateway,  and  if  he  still  cherishes  any  poor 
shreds  of  resentment,  let  him  go  and  bury  them 
out  of  sight  before  he  brings  his  heart  into  the 
presence  of  the  dead  for  judgment. 

This  is  the  special  lesson  for  the  month  of  May. 
From  afar  there  comes  the  echo  of  martial  music, 
the  distant  tread  of  advancing  columns,  the  fra- 
grance of  a  treasure-house  of  flowers,  a  sound  of 
the  flapping  of  torn  and  tattered  banners,  pro- 
claiming that  Decoration  Day  is  at  hand.  Upon 
the  graves  of  the  patriot  dead  who  are  buried 
here,  garlands  of  bud  and  blossoms  will  be  laid. 
The  graves  of  these  men  are  found  beside  every 
pathway.  Here  stout  old  Francis  Lewis,  signer 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  rests ;  there 
repose  the  ashes  of  Alexander  Hamilton  ;  yonder 
is  the  grave  of  Marinus  Willett,  hero  of  two  wars 
and  recipient  of  high  civic  honors ;  there  the 
tomb  of  General  John  Lamb,  most  ardent  of  Lib- 
erty Boys;  here  is  the  monument  which  com- 
memorates the  heroism  of  the  gallant  commander 
of  the  Chesapeake  and  his  young  lieutenant, 
and  elsewhere  one  can  find  the  stone  which  covers 
the  vault  in  which  impetuous  Phil  Kearney  has 
found  peace  after  life's  fitful  fever,  and  the  memo- 


1 8  WALKS   IN    OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

rial  erected  by  the  firemen  to  brave  Colonel  Farn- 
ham,  slain  at  Manasses,  while  in  a  far  corner  of 
the  churchyard  rises  the  tall  freestone  shaft  which 
commemorates  the  unknown  dead  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  countless  heroes  who  died  of  wounds  or 
starvation  in  the  prison  pens  over  which  the  Brit- 
ish flag  floated,  but  whose  memory  smells  sweet 
and  blossoms  in  the  dust.  To  deck  the  graves  of 
these  men  and  their  comrades  the  people  of  the 
land  are  coming  with  their  hands  filled  with  flow- 
ers and  their  hearts  fragrant  with  forgiveness  for 
those  whose  error  cost  their  lives.  It  is  well  for 
the  country  that  it  has  added  this  festival  to  its 
calendar,  if  only  to  teach  the  wonderful  beauty  of 
charity. 

It  has  been  the  habit  of  certain  writers  to  rep- 
resent the  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country  as 
having  been  the  enemy  of  the  movement  for 
popular  freedom  in  1776,  and  the  champion  of 
England  and  her  policy.  The  facts  of  history  tell 
a  different  story.  There  was  no  American  Episco- 
pate until  after  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  and 
hence  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  many  of  the 
clergy  were  Englishmen  sent  out  here  by  the 
Venerable  Society    for    the   Propagation   of   the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  19 

Gospel,  whose  home  ties  and  education  naturally 
led  them  to  take  sides  with  the  mother  country. 
But  the  native  clergy  of  the  church  were  behind 
no  others  in  unfaltering  allegiance  to  the  cause  of 
independence.  When  the  clash  of  arms  came, 
the  Rev.  Peter  Muhlenberg  threw  off  his  surplice 
after  a  farewell  sermon  in  his  church  at  Woostock, 
Virginia,  stood  before  his  flock  in  the  full  dress  of 
a  colonial  colonel,  and  mustered  almost  his  entire 
male  audience  into  the  service.  Three  hundred 
recruits  marched  away  with  him  that  day,  and 
the  close  of  the  war  found  him  a  major-general 
and  one  of  the  most  trusted  advisers  of  Washing- 
ton. Two  future  bishops  of  the  Church,  Croes  of 
New  Jersey  and  Ravenscroft  of  North  Carolina, 
carried  muskets,  and  won  promotion  on  the  field 
of  battle.  The  Rev.  Samuel  Provoost,  a  native  of 
this  city,  and  assistant  minister  of  Trinity  Church, 
was  forced  to  retire  from  his  charge  during  the 
period  of  British  armed  occupation,  because  of 
his  outspoken  patriotism.  When  he  returned  the 
church  was  in  ruins  and  the  clergy  of  the  parish 
scattered.  But  his  energy  speedily  rebuilt  the 
walls  of  Zion,  and  having  been  elected  and  con- 
secrated Bishop,  he   lived   to  consecrate  the  new 


20  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

edifice,  and  as  he  spoke  the  words  of  dedication 
he  saw  among  his  congregation  the  stately  pres- 
ence of  Washington,  the  first  President  of  the  Re- 
public. 

So,  in  later  years,  when  the  country  sought 
a  final  resting-place  for  the  honored  ashes  of 
James  Lawrence,  commander  of  the  Chesapeake^ 
whose  war-cry,  "  Don't  give  up  the  ship,"  still 
rang  like  a  trumpet  throughout  the  land,  and  no 
other  place  so  fit  as  Trinity  churchyard  was  found. 
Masbachusetts  claimed  him,  and  Salem,  whose 
citizens  had  watched  the  conflict  from  a  distance, 
gave  his  remains  magnificent  obsequies ;  but  New 
York  was  selected  as  the  spot  in  which  the  hero's 
ashes  should  ultimately  rest.  On  the  i6th  of 
September,  1813,  a  long  procession,  composed  of 
members  of  both  branches  of  the  service  and 
civilians,  moved  from  the  Battery  up  Greenwich 
Street  to  Chambers,  and  thence  down  Broadway 
to  Trinity  churchyard,  where  the  body  of  Captain 
Lawrence  was  laid  in  a  grave  in  the  southwest 
corner  of  the  grounds,  far  removed  from  public 
observation.  Subsequently  the  city  corporation 
erected  there  a  simple  but  appropriate  monument 
— a  broken  column  of  white  marble,  with  the  dis- 


WALKS   IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  21 

membered  capital  lying  at  its  base.  A  generation 
later  the  corporation  of  Trinity  Church  determined 
to  remove  the  remains  to  the  more  conspicuous 
position  which  they  now  occupy,  and  the  hand- 
some mausoleum,  surrounded  by  eight  trophy 
cannon  attached  by  chains,  which  stands  close  by 
the  southernmost  entrance  to  the  Church,  is  the 
first  object  that  attracts  the  eyes  of  visitors.  The 
cannon  were  selected  from  the  arms  captured  from 
the  English  during  the  war  of  i8 12-15,  ^^^>  21s 
in  accordance  with  the  law,  each  gun  bore  its 
national  insignia,  and  an  inscription  declaring  the 
time  and  place  of  capture,  the  vestry  of  Trinity 
Church,  with  a  courtesy  worthy  the  imitation  of 
all  Christian  bodies,  directed  that  they  should  be 
buried  so  deep  that  no  evidence  of  triumph  should 
be  paraded  before  the  public  eye  so  as  to  seem 
unfriendly  to  the  stranger  within  our  gates.  It 
was  a  fitting  return  for  the  gratifying  respect  paid 
to  the  remains  of  Captain  Lawrence  and  Lieuten- 
ant Ludlow  on  their  arrival  at  Hahfax,  when  the 
entire  British  garrison  marched  in  the  funeral 
procession,  and  the  navy  furnished  the  pall- 
bearers and  guard  of  honor. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  all  the  world  can  keep 


^^         Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

Decoration  Day,  and  stand  with  bowed  head  and 
proud  tears  by  the  grave  of  any  man  who  gave 
up  Hfe  for  love  of  country  or  humanity.  Those 
who  were  among  the  men  who  marched  down 
Broadway  on  their  way  to  the  front  during  the 
long,  dark  struggle  of  thirty  years  ago  can  recall 
how  the  flag  waved  from  the  spire  of  old  Trinity, 
and  made  them  stronger  with  the  remembrance 
that  the  prayers  of  good  men  and  tender  women 
would  follow  them  to  camp  and  field  and  burial 
trench.  There  was  no  one  to  question  the  pa- 
triotism of  Trinity  Parish  then,  for  these  graves  of 
heroes — from  Alexander  Hamilton's  at  Trinity  to 
Gen.  Richard  Montgomery's  at  St.  Paul's — had 
for  four-score  years  been  preaching  eloquently  of 
the  unflinching  virtue  of  men  trained  up  on  the 
plain  old-fashioned  lines  of  **  My  duty  to  God  " 
and  "  My  duty  to  my  neighbor." 

I  have  spoken  of  this  churchyard  as  a  pure 
democracy.  Look  around  and  you  will  find  it 
so.  Actors  and  artists,  soldiers  and  lawyers,  mer- 
chants and  firemen,  two  former  federal  Secretaries 
of  the  Treasury,  three  men  who  filled  the  office 
of  Chief  Justice  in  colonial  times,  two  in  New 
York  and  one  in  New  Jersey,  a  score  of  aldermen 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.         23 

and  assemblymen,  printers,  clergymen  and  sailors 
without  limit,  are  close  together  here,  but  never 
jostle  one  another.  Their  tombstones  were  all 
familiar  to  me  once,  for  boyish  curiosity  led  me 
on  from  grave  to  grave  to  decipher  the  inscrip- 
tions, and  I  used  to  spend  hours  on  my  knees  be- 
fore them,  poking  the  moss  out  of  the  letters  and 
out  of  the  eyes  of  the  graven  cherubs  above  the 
inscriptions,  a  rosy,  merry  antiquarian,  and  the 
antithesis  of  Walter  Scott's  restorer  of  tomb- 
stones. The  graves  were  familiar  to  my  eye,  but 
I  had  a  deep  reverence  for  the  people  who  occu- 
pied them ;  an  awe,  partly  born  of  the  inscrip- 
tions, which  in  former  days  always  had  the  tend- 
ency of  a  funeral  sermon  and  sought  to  flatter 
the  deceased,  somewhat  as  modern  art  rouges  the 
lips  of  a  corpse  and  seeks  to  rob  death  of  its  ter- 
rors. But  there  is  one  grave  which  lies  so  close 
to  Broadway  that  a  keen  eye  can  catch  upon  the 
memorial  stone  its  legend,  which  used  to  have  a 
different  effect  upon  me.  I  felt  that  I  would  have 
liked  to  know  the  occupant,  and  pictured  him  to 
myself  as  a  gentleman  of  rotund  build  and  rosy 
cheek,  whose  face  beamed  with  good  nature  and 
who  would  have  been  tolerant  of  boys,  even  if 


24  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

they  were  inclined  to  mischief.  The  stone  is  the 
memorial  of  a  New  York  merchant,  once  an  offi- 
cer in  the  English  army,  one  of  whose  descend- 
ants, Samuel  F.  B.  Morse,  was  the  father  of  the 
world's  telegraph  system,  and  beneath  it  rests 
earth  that  was  once  Sydney  Breese,  who  died  in 
1767,  and  before  death  wrote  the  inscription  which 
he  desired  on  his  tombstone.     Here  it  is  : 

Ha,  Sydney,  Sydney! 
Lyest  thou  Here  ? 

I  here  Lye, 
'Til  time  is  flown 
To  its  Extremity. 

A  quaint  soul  he  must  have  been,  and  staunch 
withal,  for  he  was  ancestor  of  an  eminent  line,  to 
some  of  whom  he  bequeathed  sparkling  bits  of 
his  humor. 

One  of  the  distinguished  citizens  who  became 
Chief  Justice  of  the  colony  of  New  York,  was 
James  De  Lancey,  who  was  also  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, and  during  vacancies  administered  the  gov- 
ernment for  several  years.  He  was  found  dead  in 
his  library,  at  his  handsome  country-seat  on  the 
Bowery  road,  in   1760,  and  was  buried    in   the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  2$ 

middle  aisle  of  Trinity  .Church.  Daniel  Horse- 
manden,  who  married  the  widow  of  the  Rev. 
William  Vesey,  rector  of  Trinity  Church,  was  ap- 
pointed Chief  Justice  in  1763.  At  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution  he  espoused  the  royal  cause, 
liaving  been  born  and  educated  in  England,  but 
died  in  this  city  in  1778,  and  was  buried  in  Trin- 
ity churchyard.  David  Jamison,  who  was  at  one 
time  Chief  Justice  of  New  Jersey,  and  afterward 
Attorney- General  of  the  Province  of  New  York, 
and  Recorder  of  this  city,  belonged  to  an  earlier 
period  of  colonial  history,  having  begun  to  hold 
office  in  1693  as  Clerk  of  the  Council.  A  Scotch- 
man by  birth,  he  had  been  banished  to  America 
because  he  had  become  identified  with  a  religious 
society  called  the  "  Sweet  Singers,"  who  believed 
in  burning  all  books  except  the  Bible.  His  re- 
ligious views  changed  with  his  advancing  years, 
and  he  became  one  of  the  leading  vestrymen  of 
Trinity  Church,  had  a  notable  funeral,  and  was 
**  very  decently  '*  interred  in  the  graveyard. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  tablets  in  the 
whole  assemblage  of  stones  is  that  which  covers 
the  dust  of  William  Bradford,  fifty  years  printer 
to  the  colonial  government,  the  first  to  print  the 


26  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

English  Prayer- Book,  and  to  issue  proposals  to 
print  the  English  Bible  here,  and  always  an  ex- 
ample of  piety,  integrity  and  patriotism.  Revered 
as  the  earliest  champion  of  the  freedom  of  the 
press  in  this  country,  he  left  to  his  descendants  an 
inheritance  of  love  of  country  and  undaunted 
couarge  in  its  cause  which  bore  fruit  in  the  gallant 
career  of  his  grandson,  Colonel  William  Bradford, 
also  a  printer,  who  sacrificed  life  and  fortune  in 
the  war  for  independence.  Very  tame  by  the 
side  of  such  a  record  is  the  story  of  John  Law- 
rence, an  eminent  merchant,  who  married  a  daugh- 
ter of  Philip  Livingston,  and  whose  body  was  in- 
terred in  the  family  vault  of  the  Earl  of  Sterling. 
He  died  in  1765,  and  the  celebrated  George 
Whitfield,  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  renown, 
preached  his  funeral  sermon.  But  peace  has  her 
victories  no  less  than  war,  and  who  shall  say  that 
the  stainless  life  of  the  upright  man  of  business  is 
not  as  proud  a  trophy  in  the  eyes  of  the  Creator 
as  the  patriotic  sacrifice  of  the  soldier's  life,  or 
the  triumph  that  is  won  over  the  oppressor  by 
the  wisdom  of  patriotic  statesmanship  ? 

Of  all  the  inscriptions  in  the  churchyard  of  old 
Trinity,  the  most  pathetic,  as  well  as  the  most  of 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.         27 

a  poem  in  stone,  is  that  which  tells  of  the  death 
of  the  widow  of  Captain  Lawrence  of  the  Chesa- 
peake. More  than  fifty  years  of  lonely  life 
elapsed  between  the  bright  May  morning  in 
which  she  had  kissed  her  brave  young  husband 
good-bye  and  the  quiet  September  evening  in 
which  she  set  out  to  meet  him  again.  She  was 
in  the  bloom  of  her  youthful  beauty  when  they 
parted,  and  he  passed  beyond  the  veil  in  the  glory 
of  his  early  manhood,  stalwart  and  rosy  and  un- 
wrinkled ;  now,  as  she  laid  down  her  burden  of 
life  she  was  bent,  withered  and  white-haired.  Did 
they  know  each  other  when  they  met  eye  to  eye, 
and  face  to  face  ?  Are  these  wrinkles  and  crip- 
pling pains  but  marks  of  earth  which  we  throw  off 
as  we  enter  the  portal  of  the  house  with  many 
mansions  ?  Will  not  the  eye  which  is  spiritual, 
and  not  natural,  see  in  its  dear  dead,  only  the 
loveliness  of  the  soul  and  the  radiant  beauty  of 
the  heart  which  never  grows  old  ?  The  fountain 
of  eternal  youth  was  sought  by  Ponce  de  Leon  in 
vain,  but  the  priests  who  bore  the  standard  of  the 
cross  in  his  expedition  might  have  told  him  that 
it  lies  just  within  *'  the  gate  beautiful  "  of  the  tem- 
ple eternal  in   the  heavens.     If  it  were  possible 


28  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

that  it  should  be  otherwise,  the  disappointment 
would  imply  the  deception  of  a  doomed  world. 
I  know,  as  I  look  at  this  brief,  but  most  pathetic, 
story  of  woman's  unforgetfulness  carved  on  the 
stone  mausoleum,  that  some  one  who  had  been 
listening  long,  but  with  no  count  of  years,  heard 
her  footsteps,  and,  hastening  to  clasp  her  hand 
found  her  even  lovelier  than  he  had  remembered 
And  to  this  belief  every  flower  and  leaf  of  May 
answers  back,  **  Amen  !" 


III. 

If  I  were  a  physician,  and  one  of  those  busy 
men  of  Wall  Street,  who  complain  of  the  wear  and 
tear  of  an  unresting  brain  which  brings  sleep- 
lessness and  prostration  in  its  train,  came  to  me 
for  advice,  I  should  prescribe  a  daily  half-hour 
walk  in  the  churchyard  of  old  Trinity.  As  a 
panacea,  I  believe  that  garden  of  the  dead  to  be 
worth  its  value  in  gold  every  year  to  the  public 
whose  eyes  turn  from  the  dusty  street  to  its 
trees  and  flowers,  and  from  grimy  pavements  to 
the  coverlet  of  white  which  is  drawn  by  unseen 
hands  over  the  unconscious  sleepers.  The  sight 
of  its  green  grasses  that  recall  distant  and  half- 
forgotten  meadows ;  of  its  banks  of  snow  that 
bring  back  the  old  farm-house  of  childhood  and 
the  trees  that  waved  their  bare  arms  above  it 
in  the  wintry  wind  ;  of  the  graves  that  are  al- 
ways tenderly  eloquent  of  vacant  chairs  at  every 
hearthstone,  changes  the  current  of  the  blood, 
quickens  the  sluggish  beating  of  the  heart  and 
breathes  peace  and  healing  into  the  tired  and 
overworked  brain. 

There  is  nothing  sad  but  everything  that  is 
29 


30  WALKS  IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

cheering  in  a  walk  among  these  graves.  It  was 
the  last  survivor  of  the  apostles,  who,  after  nearly 
a  century  of  life,  heard  a  voice  from  Heaven 
which  said:  "Blessed  are  the  dead."  The  dew 
and  the  sunshine  rest  upon  their  sleeping  places  ; 
the  birds  sing  their  sweetest  songs  to  them  as 
they  perch  upon  their  crumbling  tombstones, 
and  the  din  and  tumult  of  the  outer  world  is 
unable  to  mar  the  slumber  of  the  tenants  of  the 
sod  who  now  rest  from  their  labors.  So  quiet, 
so  peaceful,  so  sure  of  a  sweet  awakening  is 
their  sleep,  that  many  an  unresting  laborer  for 
riches  in  the  busy  streets  on  which  the  shadow 
of  the  church-spire  falls,  could  envy  them  their 
dreamless  rest,  if  but  his  work  were  done  and 
the  eventide  had  come  to  release  him. 

On  a  bright  October  afternoon,  not  many  days 
ago,  I  took  my  own  prescription  of  a  half-hour's 
stroll  in  Trinity  churchyard  ;  having  full  faith  in 
the  medicine  that  I  recommend  to  others.  The 
leaves  had  fallen  from  many  of  the  trees,  but  the 
grass  was  green  and  there  was  a  radiant  touch  of 
autumn  in  the  foliage  that  remained.  A  blue  bird 
that  had  come  in  March,  and  who  with  his  com- 
rades had  passed  the  skirmish  line  of  the  advanc- 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  3 1 

ing  army  of  birds  sat  piping  a  farewell  song  on 
the  branch  of  a  little  maple.  It  was  not  like  his 
merry  melody  in  the  spring,  full  of  violets,  run- 
ning brooks  and  warm  southwest  winds,  but  was 
a  lament  that  the  birds  had  gone  and  that  he  must 
follow  them.  I  heard  him  afterwards  going  round 
from  tree  to  tree,  erecting  his  altar  now  here,  now 
there,  in  his  leafy  cathedral  and  making  his  offer- 
ing, and  I  knew  that  he  meant  to  come  back  with 
another  March.  For  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
same  omnipotence  which  puts  an  unerring  com- 
pass in  the  head  of  the  little  feathered  bunch  of 
melody  to  guide  him,  must  also  put  there  dreams 
of  the  shadows  and  sunshine,  the  trees  and  flow- 
ers of  the  old  churchyard  which  is  every  year 
vocal  with  the  songs  of  birds,  and  so  when  spring 
returns,  they  come  back  and  cradle  their  young 
on  the  branches  in  which  they  swung  in  their  in- 
fancy. 

On  the  trunks  of  the  elms  the  woodpeckers 
were  at  work,  like  so  many  sextons,  digging  count- 
less graves  in  the  dark,  hard  bark.  I  watched  one 
who  wore  a  red  velvet  cap  and  white  underclothes 
and  seemed  to  have  wrapped  a  silken  shawl  about 
him  and  who  was  boring  away  at  a  decayed  por- 


32  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

tion  of  the  tree,  hitching  around,  hammering  and 
digging,  without  paying  the  slightest  regard  to 
my  existence.  I  felt  as  insignificant  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  busy,  bustling  httle  fellow  as  if  I  had 
intruded  upon  the  business  hours  of  a  Wall  street 
broker.  He  is  as  reticent  as  the  bluebird  is  talk- 
ative, but  I  have  a  profound  respect  for  that  noisy 
activity  of  his,  which  I  have  never  been  able  to 
imitate.  Presently  both  woodpecker  and  bluebird 
will  be  gone  and  then  the  senseless  chattering  of 
the  ubiquitous  sparrow  will  alone  be  heard  until 
the  warm  winds  once  more  blow  from  the  south. 
Now  do  you  understand,  O  wearied  man  of  cease- 
less activities,  how  the  song  of  that  bluebird  and 
the  sight  of  the  redcapped  woodpecker  did  me 
more  good  that  day  than  could  have  been  accom- 
plished by  the  contents  of  an  entire  apothecary 
shop? 

Yet  birds  and  trees  are  but  incidents  of  a  half 
hour's  walk  in  the  old  city  graveyard.  To  the 
New  Yorker  who  takes  patriotic  pride  in  the  place 
of  his  birth  and  to  the  American  citizen  who  has 
made  his  home  here,  there  is  not  a  crumbling 
tombstone  in  the  consecrated  enclosure  that  does 
not  bring  up  recollections  to  stir  his  heart  to  the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  33 

core.  There  is  a  complete  history  of  New  York, 
from  the  day  when  it  passed  into  the  possession 
of  those  who  spoke  our  language  and  professed 
our  creed,  written  on  these  stones,  and  in  the 
names  graven  on  the  slabs  that  cover  the  en- 
trances to  family  vaults,  there  are  links  that  con- 
nect with  the  time  of  Governor  Petrus  Stuyvesant 
and  reach  back  almost  to  the  day  when  Governor 
Minuit  purchased  from  the  red  man  the  title  to 
the  territory  of  Manhattan  Island. 

Come  with  me  to  the  southwest  corner  of  the 
building  where  in  the  pavement  is  inserted  a  slab 
which  bears  the  inscription  **  Anthony  Lispenard 
Bleecker,  1790."  Five  generations  of  the  family 
sleep  there,  and  though  the  stone  is  but  a  century 
old,  it  has  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half  of  new 
world  history  attached  to  it.  Jan  Jansen  Bleecker 
came  to  New  Amsterdam  in  1658,  but  he  settled 
at  Albany  and  became  mayor  of  that  town  and 
the  father  of  ten  children.  It  was  an  era  of  abun- 
dant olive  branches  around  the  family  table,  and 
when  his  grandson,  Jacobus  Bleecker,  who  mar- 
ried a  daughter  of  Anthony  Lispenard,  of  New 
Rochelle,  looked  around  to  see  how  he  should 
dispose  of  his  nine  children,  one  of  the  flock 
3 


34  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

Struck  out  for  himself  and  came  to  New  York, 
where  fame  and  fortune  awaited  him. 

It  was  in  1768  that  he  set  up  in  business  at  No. 
10  Pearl  Street,  on  Hanover  Square,  as  a  merchant 
and  the  only  licensed  colonial  auctioneer.  His 
early  advertisements  offered  for  sale  puncheons  of 
Jamaica  rum  and  "  likely  negro  boys  and 
wenches,"  as  well  as  choice  bits  of  city  real  estate 
below  Wall  Street  and"  farms  above  the  canal  and 
the  Collect  Pond.  Like  other  merchants  of  his 
day  he  lived  in  the  rooms  above  his  store  and  it 
was  not  until  his  thirteen  children  demanded  more 
space  to  turn  around  in  that  he  settled  down  at 
No.  74  Broadway  in  a  house  of  old-fashioned  yel- 
low brick  imported  from  Holland,  which  grey- 
haired  men  of  New  York  can  yet  recall.  A 
staunch  churchman,  he  was  a  vestryman  of  Trinity 
Church  and  his  son  and  grandson  have  filled  the 
same  office.  The  grandson,  Anthony  J.  Bleecker, 
was  perhaps  the  most  famous  of  his  line.  A  fine 
scholar,  a  courteous  gentleman  and  celebrated  for 
his  wit,  no  social  gathering  of  my  boyhood  was 
complete  without  his  presence.  He  had  rounded 
four-score  and  four  years  of  a  spotless  life,  when 
he  was  called  to  go  up  higher.     His  body  was  the 


WALKS  IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  35 

last  one  interred  in  the  family  vault,  his  funeral 
taking  place  January  19th,  1884. 

The  record  of  the  Bleecker  family  illustrates 
what  I  had  in  mind  to  say,  that  the  mossy  broken 
letters  carved  on  these  crumbling  tombstones  are 
as  complete  a  story  of  the  past  of  New  York  as 
in  their  way  are  the  countless  hieroglyphics  on 
the  tombs  and  public  buildings  of  Pharaohs  that 
aim  to  tell  of  the  glories  of  ancient  Egypt.  A 
score  of  lines  converge  at  a  single  square  of  brown 
stone  that  bears  but  a  name  and  a  date.  The 
earliest  of  the  Bleeckers  married  into  the  Rutgers 
family.  One  of  his  sons  wedded  a  daughter  of 
the  Schuyler  lineage,  at  Albany.  The  father  of 
Anthony  J.  Bleecker  took  for  his  bride  a  daughter 
of  Theophylact  Bache,  first  President  of  the  New 
York  Chamber  of  Commerce.  It  is  but  a  step 
from  the  Bleecker  vault  to  that  of  the  Lispenards, 
who  were  early  allied  to  them  by  marriage.  Both 
families  were  originally  Huguenot  and  came  natur- 
ally into  the  fold  of  the  mother  church  of  Eng- 
land, defender  of  the  old,  pure  faith.  Leonard 
Lispenard,  most  famous  of  his  line,  was  a  member 
of  the  Stamp  Act  Congress  and  an  ardent  patriot. 
The  male  line  has  disappeared  and  the  Lispenards 


36  WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS. 

all  sleep  in  the  family  vault,  but  the  blood  of  these 
brave  old  Huguenots  and  churchmen  comes 
through  the  veins  of  men  and  women  who  bear 
the  names  of  Stewart,  Webb,  Livingston,  Le  Roy 
and  Winthorp,  and  who  have  reason  to  be  proud 
of  their  lineage.  A  street  which  bears  the  name 
of  the  last  of  the  Lispenards  is  said  to  have  led 
from  Broadway  to  his  country  seat,  built  on  a 
hill  near  the  present  junction  of  Hudson  and  Des- 
brosses  Street,  overlooking  the  swampy  ground 
on  which  St.  John's  Church  was  built  and  the 
little  lake  that  afterwards  formed  part  of  St.  John's 
Park. 

South  of  the  Bleecker  vault  and  on  the  row 
east  of  the  monument  to  Albert  Gallatin,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  under  Jefferson,  is  the  burial 
place  of  the  Livingston  family.  The  slab  bears 
the  inscription:  *'The  Vault  of  Walter  and 
Robert  C.  Livingston,  sons  of  Robert  Livingston, 
of  the  Manor  of  Livingston."  Among  its  tenants 
is  the  body  of  Robert  Fulton,  the  builder  of 
America's  first  steamboat,  and  he  could  not  sleep 
in  more  illustrious  company.  It  is  worth  while  to 
pause  here  and  look  over  the  gap  in  the  history 
of    the   colonies,    which   this    one   family   filled. 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHtJRCllYAkBS.  37 

Robert  Livingston,  scion  of  a  noble  Scotch  house, 
first  appears  in  colonial  history  with  Sir  Edmund 
Andros,  as  Secretary  of  Indian  affairs.  From  that 
time  his  life  reads  like  a  romance.  Through 
Andros  he  became  possessor  of  a  manor  and  an 
extensive  patent  of  lands  and  his  fortune  seems 
to  be  made.  Next  we  see  him  imprisoned  in  the 
fort  at  the  Battery  by  command  of  Governor 
Leisler ;  then  standing  in  front  of  the  scaffold  on 
which  Leisler  and  Milborne  were  executed  and 
denounced  by  the  latter  as  his  murderer ;  pres- 
ently at  the  Court  of  King  William,  in  England, 
introducing  Captain  Kidd,  the  renowned  privateer 
and  subsequent  pirate,  to  his  Majesty  ;  after  a 
while  denounced  to  the  authorities,  and  his  entire 
possession  confiscated  to  the  crown,  and  in  the 
end  dying  with  his  hands  full  of  riches  and  honors, 
none  of  which  could  the  ambitious  man  carry 
away  with  him.  His  son  Philip,  while  succeed- 
ing to  his  father's  honors,  took  life  more  easily 
and  sought  and  found  enjoyment  in  his  three 
princely  establishments.  When  in  March,  1749, 
his  funeral  was  celebrated  from  his  imposing  town 
mansion  on  Broad  Street,  a  pipe  of  spiced  wine 
was  opened,  gloves  and  handkerchiefs  were  given 


38  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

to  each  of  his  tenants,  and  in  case  of  the  eight 
pall  bearers,  scarfs,  mourning  rings  and  monkey- 
spoons  were  added. 

Yet  these  men,  though  born  to  luxury,  were 
none  the  less  self-sacrificing  patriots  when  the 
pinch  came.  Judge  Robert  R.  Livingston,  third 
of  his  line,  was  made  chairman  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary Committee  of  Correspondence  and  mem- 
ber of  the  Stamp  Act  Congress,  while  his  cousin, 
Philip  Livingston,  a  merchant  of  this  city,  be- 
came a  delegate  to  the  first  Continental  Con- 
gress, signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
remained  at  his  post  when  Congress  fled  from 
Philadelphia  to  York,  Pa.,  and  died  there,  in  the 
harness,  before  he  could  see  the  fruit  of  his  la- 
bors and  sacrifices.  The  fame  of  the  colonial 
Livingston  family  culminated  in  Chancellor 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  the  intimate  friend  of 
Washington  and  of  the  great  builders  of  the 
republic,  at  whose  hands  the  first  President  took 
the  oath  of  office.  He  did  good  service  in  the 
Continental  Congress  and  in  having  the  federal 
constitution  adopted  by  his  native  state,  and  as 
Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  Minister  to 
France  developed    rare    statesmanship.     Follow- 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  39 

ing  these  heroic  founders  of  the  house  of  Liv- 
ingston come  an  innumerable  company  who  have 
done  good  service  in  field  and  forum  and  di- 
plomacy and  in  our  municipal  government. 
Looking  back  over  their  past,  one  is  tempted 
to  say,  that  nothing  better  can  be  told  of  a 
good  citizen  than  can  be  said  of  them,  that  the 
history  of  their  family  is  the  story  of  the  land 
and  city  in  which  they  live.  And  yet  there  is 
one  thing  better  still  than  the  civic  crown.  The 
shadow  of  the  cross  to  which  they  trusted  lies 
over  their  grave  and  back  from  the  sod  comes 
an  echo  to  say  that  these  all  died  in  the  faith. 

There  is  one  of  those  squares  of  brown  stones 
which  is  a  special  object  of  interest  to  thousands 
with  each  recurring  Decoration  Day,  because  it 
points  out  where  after  hfe's  fitful  fever  the  restless 
heart  of  Gen.  Philip  Watts  Kearney  is  sleeping 
quietly.  His  body  was  placed  in  the  tomb  of  his 
ancestors — the  Watts  family  vault — and  the  vete- 
rans who  recall  the  hero  of  Chantilly  and  many 
another  hard-fought  field,  gather  here  year  by 
year  and  with  bared  head  and  proud  words  of  re- 
membrance cover  the  stone  with  the  blossoms  of 
May.     But  apart  from  the  brilliant  record   of  its 


40         Walks  In  our  churcHyarIds. 

soldier  tenant,  the  tomb  deserves  honors  at  the 
hands  of  sons  of  New  York.  It  has  its  own  his- 
torical renown. 

About  the  year  1710  there  came  to  New  York 
from  the  ancient  family  estate  of  Rosehill,  near 
Edinburgh,  a  young  man  of  many  personal  at- 
tractions and  of  rare  culture,  named  Robert  Watts. 
He  had  money  of  his  own,  was  a  friend  of  the 
government  and  in  five  years'  time  was  appointed 
a  member  of  Governor  Hunter's  council.  To  him 
was  born  in  1 7 1 5  a  son  who  afterwards  became 
the  celebrated  John  Watts,  a  member  of  the  gov- 
ernor's council,  as  his  father  had  been,  and  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  the 
period.  His  marriage  to  a  sister  of  Lieutenant- 
Governor  DeLancey,  allied  him  to  the  leading 
families  of  the  little  city  and  linked  him  to  the 
pioneer  history  of  the  colony.  Socially  he  was  a 
power.  He  built  a  fine  city  mansion  at  No.  3 
Broadway,  whose  gardens  extended  to  the  water 
and  his  country  seat  reaching  from  the  East  River 
to  Broadway  and  covering  Madison  Square  was  in 
summer  a  favorite  resort  of  the  then  existing 
Four  Hundred  of  society.  As  the  confidential 
adviser  of  the  governor  he  became  imbued  with 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  4I 

the  spirit  of  loyalty  to  the  crown  and  was  pro- 
portionately obnoxious  to  the  Liberty  Boys. 
When  the  British  troops  entered  New  York  he 
prepared  to  flee.  A  mob  of  excited  citizens 
caught  him  on  the  steps  of  his  own  house  and 
threatened  death  and  destruction.  Just  at  that 
moment  Judge  Robert  R.  Livingston  was  return- 
ing from  court  in  his  scarlet  robes  and  saw  the 
danger  of  his  friend  whom  he  dearly  loved  though 
differing  from  him  politically.  Whispering  to 
Watts  where  to  conceal  himself,  he  began  a  speech 
to  the  throng  and  held  them  spellbound  with  his 
oratory  until  his  friend  was  safe.  That  night 
Watts  embarked  on  a  man-of-war  and  before  a 
year  had  passed  both  were  dead.  The  incident 
came  back  to  me  as  I  turned  from  the  tablet  of 
one  family  to  the  other  and  thought  how  joyful 
must  have  been  the  meeting  of  the  two  friends  in 
the  land  where  there  are  no  wars. 

John  Watts,  son  of  the  exile,  apparently  did  not 
sympathize  with  his  father's  opinions  but  cast  in 
his  lot  on  the  patriot  side.  In  the  great  Federal 
procession  of  1788,  which  celebrated  the  ratifica- 
tion by  the  state  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  we  see  him,  a  model  of  masculine  beauty, 


42  '  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

clad  as  a  farmer  riding  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of 
gentlemen  farmers;  later  we  find  him  elected 
Speaker  of  the  Assembly  and  filling  many  offices 
of  trust ;  founding  the  Leake  &  Watts  Orphan 
Asylum  at  the  age  of  eighty  and  on  the  eve  of 
his  death,  seven  years  later,  riding  on  horseback 
past  old  Trinity,  erect  and  graceful,  the  admira- 
tion of  the  pedestrians  who  thronged  the  "  Mall," 
as  the  Broadway  promenade  between  the  Battery 
and  St.  Paul's  was  then  called. 

The  matrimonial  connections  of  this  family  were 
what  society  would  call  brilliant.  Robert,  the 
oldest  son  of  the  first  John  Watts,  married  a 
daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Stirling,  known  in  the 
Republican  court  of  Washington  as  Lady  Mary 
Watts.  One  daughter  married  Archibald  Ken- 
nedy, her  next-door  neighbor,  at  No.  i  Broadway, 
who  became  the  eleventh  Earl  of  Cassilis.  Three 
other  daughters  married  respectively  Sir  John 
Johnson,  Philip  Kearney  and  Major  Robert  Leake. 
None  of  the  five  sons  of  the  second  John  Watts 
were  married,  but  one  of  his  daughters  married 
her  cousin  Philip  Kearney,  and  became  the  mother 
of  the  hero  of  Chantilly,  and  another  wedded 
Frederic   de   Peyster,   and    her   son   is  the  well- 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  43 

known  General  J.  Watts  de  Peyster.  It  is  a 
famous  family  line,  but  as  I  stand  by  the  side  of 
the  stone  that  covers  but  heaps  of  crumbling  ashes, 
1  know  that  none  of  these  things  are  written  down 
in  the  books  of  record  that  stand  in  the  celestial 
archives,  waiting  to  be  opened  for  judgment. 
None,  did  I  say  ?  The  story  of  the  gathering  in 
of  orphans  into  an  asylum  of  refuge,  the  good 
deeds  of  a  hand  ready  to  give  to  all  who  were  in 
want,  are  written  there  in  letters  of  gold. 

One  of  the  most  picturesque  spots  on  Manhat- 
tan Island,  and  a  relic  of  old  times  well  worth  a 
pilgrimage,  is  the  old  Watts  mansion,  at  about 
141st  Street,  and  midway  between  6th  and  7th 
Avenues.  For  half  a  dozen  blocks  the  streets 
have  not  been  cut  through  and  this  part  of  the 
estate  is  a  farm  of  substantial  size,  with  all  rural 
accessories.  The  great  square  house  with  its  tall 
columns  in  front  and  its  observatory  which  has 
seen  a  city  grow  up  about  it  of  late  years,  was  a 
conspicuous  object  in  the  landscape  when  the 
Watts  family  transferred  their  country  house  from 
the  East  River  and  Madison  Square  to  a  spot 
which  they  were  sure  the  slowly- growing  city 
would  not  disturb  for  a  couple  of  centuries.     Now 


44  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

the  authorities  are  eager  to  cut  streets  through 
the  green  sward  and  level  the  great  groups  of 
oaks  and  Cottonwood  that  lend  an  air  of  age  and 
dignity  to  the  place.  The  old  New  York  mer- 
chant and  man  of  affairs  was  a  comfortable  sort  of 
soul  and  liked  to  have  his  little  farm  and  ample 
mansion  on  the  upper  part  of  the  island  of  Man- 
hattan and  of  these  few  remain  The  Gracie  man- 
sion is  to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  East  River  Park 
in  a  few  months,  the  "  Grange  "  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  has  been  moved  and  remodelled  into  a 
new  St.  Luke's  church,  and  none  can  tell  how 
long  the  old  Watts  homestead  and  the  newer 
stone  mansion  on  the  same  street,  a  stately  build- 
ing whose  owners  still  bear  the  name  of  Watts, 
will  resist  the  march  of  improvement.  Old  An- 
thony Lispenard  Bleecker  had  a  farm  which 
reached  from  the  Bowery  to  Minetta  Lane  and 
from  Bond  Street  nearly  to  Houston,  but  not  one 
acre  of  it  now  belongs  to  the  family  and  only  the 
name  of  the  street  near  its  lower  boundary  recalls 
the  name  of  its  early  possessors.  So  goes  the 
world  of  change.  In  one  case  a  family  name  be- 
comes extinct  in  the  direct  line,  in  another  its 
wealth  is  diverted  into  the  hands  of  innumerable 


WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS.  45 

descendants,  and  we  have  no  choice  in  the  matter, 
even  if  we  desired  to  make  it  or  knew  how  to 
choose.  And  this  is  one  of  the  lessons  that  a 
walk  in  the  old  churchyard,  under  the  golden  sun 
of  October  and  amid  falling  leaves  impresses  upon 
the  overworked  harvesters  in  the  world's  field. 
The  sheaves  are  golden  but  we  cannot  tell  who 
shall  gather  them. 

The  other  day,  as  we  walked  from  the  old 
Watts*  place  to  the  neighborhood  of  Hamilton 
Grange,  Master  Felix  Oldboy  who  walked  by  my 
side  and  held  my  hand  tightly  in  his  own,  said  : 
"  New  York  is  growing  up  into  the  woods — 
look !  "  Through  little  knots  of  forest  trees  and 
across  boulders  of  vine-clad  primeval  rocks,  we 
could  see  blocks  of  new  houses  that  looked  as  if 
they  had  been  dropped  there  in  a  night.  Close 
at  hand  a  laborer  was  plying  his  axe  against  the 
trunk  of  a  lordly  oak,  undoing  in  an  hour  the 
work  of  centuries.  With  the  stroke  of  the  cruel 
steel  there  came  back  to  me  the  remembrance  of 
an  old-time  school  in  which,  some  fifty  years  ago, 
I  sat  under  the  ministrations  of  an  old-fashioned 
teacher.  Like  many  of  his  kind,  he  loved  to  hear 
himself  talk,  and  once  in  a  while  he  uttered  a 


46  WALKS  IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

thought  worth  keeping  in  memory.  One  of  his 
maxims,  frequently  heard,  was  this :  "  The  boy 
who  would  injure  a  shade  tree  would  kill  a  man." 
It  was  an  exaggeration,  of  course,  but  I  think  it 
taught  us  all  to  have  a  reverence  for  the  leafy 
children  of  the  forest. 

Often  when  I  pass  St.  Paul's  I  think  of  old  Sex- 
ton Brown,  who  planted  the  ancient  elms  in  the 
churchyard.  He  passed  away  long  decades  ago, 
and  his  grandson  grew  up  to  be  a  Bishop  of  the 
Church  and  died,  but  the  trees  still  live  and  give 
out  a  grateful  shade.  What  hands  planted  those 
in  Trinity's  garden  of  the  dead  I  do  not  know,  but 
they  deserve  to  be  chronicled,  for  they  builded 
better  than  they  knew  and  through  leaf  and 
branch  have  spoken  words  of  hope  and  cheer  to 
countless  thousands.  If  the  many  men  who  plod 
outside  will  try  my  prescription,  and  come  within 
the  sacred  enclosure  and  walk  under  the  over- 
arching trees  and  between  the  graves,  they  will 
gather  health  and  something  better  still,  for,  even 
in  November  the  bare  boughs  will  whisper  to 
them  of  a  spring  that  is  coming  after  the  snows 
of  winter,  and  of  a  new  life  that  will  break  the 
sleep  of  bud  and  leaf  and  blossom  and  make  all 
the  trees  of  the  wood  to  rejoice  before  the  Lord  ! 


ST.  I'AUl.  S   CHAl'EU 


t      c      t      C    I 


IV. 

There  has  been  a  fall  of  snow  upon  the  church- 
yards, and  the  white  flakes,  after  whirling  like 
disembodied  blossoms  of  summer  over  the  house- 
tops and  through  the  streets,  settled  down  upon 
the  graves  of  the  blessed  dead  as  silently  and 
sweetly  as  if  they  were  a  benediction  from 
heaven.  With  the  next  day,  the  sun  shone 
brightly,  and  up  through  many  a  rent  in  the 
white  coverlet  of  the  snow,  the  grass,  that  had 
kept  its  greenness  in  spite  of  wintry  blasts, 
peeped  triumphantly  again,  speaking  of  resurrec- 
tion in  the  language  God  gave  it;  when,  after 
having  created  it  and  realized  its  loveHness,  He 
•'  saw  that  it  was  good."  A  ragged  urchin  stood 
at  the  iron  railing  of  the  churchyard  of  old  Trin- 
ity, and  pointing  to  the  grass  that  was  struggling 
up  to  the  sunshine,  said  to  a  boy  as  unkempt  as 
himself:  "  See,  Billy,  it's  summer  yet  under  the 
snow  !  "  The  lad  who  spoke  may  never  know 
why  a  man  with  white  hair  who  was  passin^g  and 
heard  him,  pressed  something  into  his  hand  and 
with  "  Thank  you,  my  boy,"  walked  quickly  away, 
leaving  him   dazed   with    astonishment.     Yet    it 

47 


48  WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS. 

may  be  that  the  chance  word  of  the  child  of  the 
streets — if  anything  be  chance  in  a  world  where 
no  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  notice — 
has  already  been  sunshine  upon  the  snows  of  a 
heart  that  had  thought  its  roots  of  tenderness 
buried  beyond  hope  of  resurrection. 

There  is  to  me  a  pecuhar  significance  in  the 
fact  that  the  oldest  known  grave  in  Trinity  church- 
yard is  that  of  a  child.  It  is  as  if  He  who  knew 
the  hearts  of  men  and  understood  the  wild  cur- 
rents of  human  passion  that  swell  and  roar  around 
this  quiet  acre  of  the  dead,  had  again  taken  a 
little  child  and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  the  living. 
Here  is  the  quaint  record  of  a  babe  whose  death 
left  a  vacant  chair  in  a  New  York  household  of 
more  than  two  centuries  ago  : 

wc- 

HEAR  •  LYES  •  THE  •  BODY 

OF  •  RICHARD  •  CHVRCH 

ER  •  SON  •  OF  •  WILLIA 

M  • CHVRCHER  •  WHO  • 

DIED  •  THE  •  5  OF  •  APRIL 

1681  •  OF  •  AGE  5  YEARS 

AND • 5 • MONTHES 

The  brown  and  broken  slab  which  bears  this 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  49 

inscription  stands  in  the  nothern  half  of  the 
churchyard,  is  of  sandstone,  and  on  its  back  are 
cut  in  high  relief  a  winged  hour  glass  and  a  skull 
and  cross  bones.  The  artistic  care  bestowed  upon 
this  mute  memorial  shows  that  the  little  one  left 
aching  hearts  as  well  as  a  vacant  chair  behind  him. 
Next  in  point  of  age,  and  standing  next  to  it  in 
the  enclosure,  is  the  tombstone  of  a  young  girl, 
who  was  evidently  a  sister  of  little  Richard 
Churcher.  Its  inscription  reads :  "  Here  Lyeth 
the  Body  of  Anne  Churcher.  Died  May  the  14, 
1 69 1,  Aged  17  Years  and  3  Quarters.  Buryed 
May  the  16,  1691." 

When  these  graves  were  dug.  New  York,  a  little 
city  of  barely  three  thousand  inhabitants,  had  but 
recently  come  into  possession  of  the  English. 
The  members  of  the  established  church  held  ser- 
vice in  a  little  chapel  in  the  Fort,  to  which  Queen 
Anne  had  presented  a  silver  communion  set,  and 
Trinity  parish  had  not  been  organized.  The  first 
church  edifice  was  begun  in  1696  and  finished  in 
1697.  I^  the  Governor's  glebe  in  which  it  was 
erected  a  graveyard  already  existed,  and  when  in 
May  of  1697  the  Assembly,  with  the  approval  of 
the  Governor  and  Council,  passed  an  act  by  which 


50  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

"  a  certain  church  and  steeple  lately  built  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  together  with  a  parcel  of  ground 
adjoining"  was  to  be  known  as  Trinity  Church, 
this  burial  spot  was  included,  and  the  shadow  of 
the  spire  has  ever  since  rested  upon  the  tombs  of 
the  young  brother  and  sister.  They  passed  away 
in  one  of  the  most  unquiet  epochs  that  the  city 
has  ever  known.  The  revolution  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1685,  the  imprisonment  of  the  seven 
bishops  in  the  Tower  by  James  the  Second  of 
England  and  the  revolution  which  raised  William 
of  Orange  to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain,  created 
terrible  alarm  on  this  side  of  the  ocean  and  finally 
bore  fruit  in  an  uprising  which  made  Jacob  Leis- 
ler,  as  a  champion  of  Protestantism,  the  virtual 
ruler  of  New  York.  On  the  very  day  in  which 
Anne  Churcher  was  borne  to  her  grave,  Leisler 
was  hung,  on  a  charge  of  treason,  in  his  own  gar- 
den on  Park  Row,  about  where  the  statue  of  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  now  stands,  and  was  buried  at  the 
foot  of  the  scaffold,  to  be  disinterred  and  carried 
to  an  honored  grave  a  few  years  later.  There 
was  a  striking  contrast  in  the  two  funerals  on  that 
stormy  day  of  May  (for  history  says  it  was  tem- 
pestuous) and  between  the  fate  of  the  fair  young 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  5 1 

girl  and  this  first  and  last  execution  in  New  York 
for  a  political  crime. 

I  like  to  find  tombstones  erected  over  the  dust 
of  little  children.  It  is  a  matter  of  obligation  to 
place  a  stone  upon  the  grave  of  the  dead  states- 
man, soldier  or  merchant,  but  the  babe  is  apt  to 
be  forgotten  except  by  the  mother  that  nursed  it, 
and  the  world  does  not  always  take  account  of 
these  infants  of  a  span  whose  angels  behold  our 
Father's  face.  One  cannot  help  but  think  the 
better  of  human  nature  when  he  comes  across  the 
memorials  of  white  souls  that  cast  no  shadow  in 
the  world  and  of  little  feet  that  left  no  print  be- 
hind them  save  on  the  loving  hearts  they  left  be- 
hind when  they  walked  with  God  up  the  hills  of 
Beulah.  A  strange  character  in  this  city,  who 
was  known  to  everybody  two  generations  ago  as 
"  the  mad  poet,"  said,  when  he  lay  dying  in  one 
of  our  hospitals,  "  In  Heaven  I  shall  have  what 
I  love  most — plenty  of  fresh  air,  flowers  and  little 
children."  I  have  always  thought  that  the  man 
with  such  a  heart  was  certainly  not  more  crazy 
than  his  critics. 

In  the  southern  half  of  the  churchyard  is  a 
tombstone  which  has  withstood    the    storms    of 


52  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  years,  and 
which  attracted  my  notice  even  as  a  boy  because 
of  the  quaintness  of  the  verses  which  testify  to  the 
virtues  of  a  child.  More  than  forty  years  have 
passed  since  I  first  read  them  and  they  preach 
more  powerfully  now  than  then,  in  the  light  of 
the  intervening  days.  The  inscription  says  that 
beneath  the  stone  "  lies  ye  Body  of  Mary  Wragg," 
and  that  she  "departed  this  Life,  Oct.  29,  1759, 
in  ye  nth  year  of  her  Age."  Then  follows  this 
remarkable  tribute  to  her  memory : 

Her  days  Whear  short  as  ye  Winter's  Sun 
from  Dust  she  came  to  Heaven  return. 

Beneath 
this  Child  a-sleeping  lies 
to  Earth  whose  ashes  Lent 
More  Glorious  shall  hereafter  Rise 
tho'  not  more  Inocent. 
When  the  archangle's  Trump  shall  Blow 
and  Souls  and  Bodyes  Joyn, 
What  Crowds  will  wish  their  lives  Below 
Had  been  as  short  as  thine. 

It  is  noticeable  in  connection  with  this  inscrip- 
tion that  our  ancestors  were  not  always  gifted  in 
the  art  of  spelling,  and  indeed  nobody  thought  of 
criticising  so  great  a  man  as  George  Washington 
because  he  was  not  as  familiar  as  he  might  have 


Walks  in  oUr  churchyards.         53 

been  with  the  mysteries  of  the  spelling  book. 
Not  far  from  the  tombstone  last  mentioned  are 
two  small  headstones  which  stand  side  by  side 
and  indicate  the  graves  of  two  infants  belonging 
to  the  same  family,  who  successively  bore  the 
name  which  is  spelled  **Hellen  "  on  one  stone  and 
•*  Hellin  "  on  the  other.  The  same  peculiarity  is 
even  observable  in  some  of  the  family  names, 
which,  as  graven  on  stone,  differ  from  the  com- 
monly received  nomenclature. 

In  walking  among  these  ancient  tombstones  I 
am  grimly  reminded  of  a  remark  made  by  the 
late  Rev.  Dr.  Hallam,  of  New  London.  Sitting 
in  the  library  of  Bishop  Williams,  at  Middletown, 
Connecticut,  he  startled  that  prelate  by  abruptly 
exclaiming,  "  I  wonder  whether  we  shall  have  to 
live  in  the  next  world  with  the  sort  of  cherubim 
that  we  see  carved  on  tombstones.  I  really 
hope  not,  for  I  fancy  that  it  might  be  disagree- 
able." The  fancy  might  readily  be  forgiven  by 
one  who  has  made  a  study  of  the  winged  heads 
that  adorn  many  of  the  funereal  slabs  in  Trinity 
churchyard.  They  are  of  every  degree  of  grue- 
someness,  only  each  a  little  more  horrible  than 
the  others.     Yet  the  artists  meant  well  and  have 


S4        Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

discovered  their  mistake  by  this  time.  That  there 
is  no  accounting  for  tastes  is  a  truism  learned 
early  in  life,  and  some  of  these  memorial  stones 
emphasize  the  fact.  One  in  particular  which  con- 
sists of  two  slabs  joined  in  one,  has  a  skull  carved 
in  relief  at  the  head  of  each  division  of  the  slab, 
but  turned  in  different  directions.  The  inscrip- 
tion on  one  side  is  "T.  S.,  H.  S.,  D.  S.,  I.  S.. 
S.  S.,  1 73 1,"  and  on  the  other  "  H.  L.,  173 1."  As 
a  bid  to  provoke  curiosity  the  inscriptions  are  a 
success. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  variation  in  the  spelling 
of  family  names,  and  a  conspicuous  instance  is 
the  inscription  on  the  stone  which  marks  '*  Mari- 
nus  Willit's  Vault."  His  autograph  reads  "Mari- 
nus  Willett,"  and  by  this  name  he  is  equally  dis- 
tinguished in  martial  and  civic  annals.  The  ca- 
reer of  this  illustrious  son  of  a  Long  Island 
farmer  covers  a  wide  stretch  of  this  country's  his- 
tory. At  eighteen  he  was  lieutenant  in  a  colo- 
nial regiment  that  participated  in  the  disastrous 
attack  on  Ticonderoga  in  1758  ;  at  thirty- five  he 
was  one  of  the  most  active  leaders  of  the  Liberty 
Boys  in  this  city;  as  colonel  of  a  Continental 
regiment   he  accompanied   Gen.  Montgomery  in 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  55 

the  expedition  against  Quebec  and  fought  at 
Monmouth;  made  a  Brigadier- General  by  Presi- 
dent Washington,  he  fought  in  the  Indian  wars; 
subsequently  he  was  sheriff  and  mayor  of  the  city, 
and  in  1830,  in  his  ninety-first  year,  his  body  was 
laid  at  rest  in  the  family  vault.  As  I  stood  by 
his  grave  and  looked  around  the  sacred  enclosure, 
I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  change  that  had 
been  wrought  since  his  day  in  the  conduct  of  our 
municipal  affairs.  Elected  Mayor  in  1807,  his 
hands  were  upheld  by  a  Board  of  Aldermen  whose 
members  were  men  of  acknowledged  ability  and 
integrity,  who  accepted  the  office  as  a  civic  duty. 
They  were  the  fathers  of  the  city,  indeed,  and  to 
the  fact  that  they  held  the  administration  of  muni- 
cipal affairs  to  be  a  grave  responsibility,  New 
York  is  indebted  for  its  present  prosperity.  Close 
to  the  tomb  of  Mayor  Willett  are  the  ashes  of 
some  of  the  men  who  served  with  him  in  the  city's 
councils.  Among  these  were  Peter  Mesier,  who 
was  Alderman  from  1807  to  181 8;  John  Slidell, 
who  held  the  same  office  in  1 807  and  1 808  ; 
Augustine  H.  Laurence,  Alderman  from  1809  to 
1 8 16  and  Wynant  Van  Zandt,  Jr.,  who  served  as 
Alderman  from   1802   to    1806.     They  were    all 


56  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

gentlemen  of  high  social  standing,  eminent  in 
business  and  professional  life,  and  were  members 
of  the  vestry  of  Trinity  Church.  But  we  can  hardly 
fancy  a  vestryman  of  to-day  consenting  to  allow 
his  name  to  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  the 
office  of  Alderman. 

Near  the  railing  at  the  Rector  Street  side  of 
the  churchyard  is  a  stone  which  is  liable  to  escape 
the  scrutiny  of  most  eyes  by  its  modest  insignifi- 
cance. It  bears  two  inscriptions.  The  first,  "  G. 
Bend's  Vault "  is  indistinct  and  evidently  much 
older  than  the  second,  which  reads,  ''  Bishop 
Benj.  Moore  and  Charity  His  Wife."  Second 
Bishop  of  New  York,  President  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege, an  accomplished  scholar  and  a  man  of  rare 
loveliness  of  character,  the  entire  ministerial  life 
of  Benjamin  Moore  was  identified  with  Trinity 
Parish.  The  records  show  that  during  the  thirty- 
seven  years  of  his  connection  with  Trinity  Church, 
he  baptized  more  than  three  thousand  infants  and 
adults  and  solemnized  no  less  than  three  thousand 
five  hundred  marriages.  My  own  family  Bible 
shows  that  in  1804  my  grandfather  was  married 
by  him,  and  the  other  day  as  I  looked  at  the  little 
stone  half  hidden  among  the  grass  and  snow,  I 


WALKS  IN  OUk  CHURCHYARDS.  57 

could  not  help  wondering  if  they  had  met  and 
talked  the  wedding  over  in  that  land  where  there 
are  no  such  ceremonials. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Parish,  the  Bishop  of 
London  was  the  nominal  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
and  several  years  before  the  war  of  the  Revolu- 
tion broke  out  young  Benjamin  Moore  went  across 
the  Atlantic  and  was  ordained  deacon  and  priest 
by  the  Bishop  of  London  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Episcopal  palace  at  Fulham.  But  he  did  not 
leave  his  heart  in  the  mother  country.  At  the 
pretty  country-seat  of  the  widow  of  Captain 
Thomas  Clarke,  formerly  of  the  British  army, 
which  extended  from  Twentieth  to  Twenty-third 
Streets  and  from  Ninth  Avenue  to  the  river,  he 
found  his  help-meet  in  her  daughter  Charity — a 
name  most  appropriate  to  the  gentleness  of  charac- 
ter which  distinguished  both  husband  and  wife. 
Captain  Clarke  called  his  place  Chelsea,  in  honor 
of  the  home  into  which  England  gathers  her  vet- 
eran and  invalided  soldiers,  and  the  designation, 
which  afterwards  gave  its  name  to  a  lovely,  rural 
village  clustered  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  still 
adheres  to  the  locality,  though  all  traces  of  village 
lines   were  wiped  out  years  ago.     At  this  spot 


58  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

Bishop  Moore  passed  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
dispensing  a  generous  hospitality,  and  partly  be- 
cause of  his  profession  and  in  part  for  some  fancy 
as  to  its  shape,  his  house  was  known  in  the  neigh- 
borhood as  "  The  Pulpit."  Cut  down  to  the  di- 
mensions of  a  single  block,  the  old  tree-clad  place 
remained  as  a  landmark  up  to  some  thirty  years 
ago,  and  I  recall  its  loveliness  vividly  as  a  rustic 
oasis  in  city  streets.  But  to  my  eyes  it  was  en- 
chanted ground  for  the  reason  that  in  the  old 
house  hidden  among  the  trees  dwelt  Clement  C. 
Moore,  the  man — for  whose  profound  scholarship 
and  for  the  fact  that  he  was  the  son  of  Bishop 
Moore  I  did  not  care — who  had  written  the  child's 
jingle  of  the  century  : 

"  Twas  the  night  before  Christmas." 

Looking  back  through  the  sweet  associations  of 
more  than  half  a  century  of  Christmas  days,  and 
writing  with  the  fragrant  dawn  of  another  Christ- 
mas upon  us,  I  know  not  what  happier  fate  could 
befall  one  than  to  have  generations  of  little  ones 
rise  up  to  call  him  blessed  because  of  the  work  of 
his  pen,  which  has  added  a  fresh   charm  to  the 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.         59 

season  that  belongs  specially  to  them  by  right  of 
inheritance  from  the  babe  of  Bethlehem. 

As  I  close  this  day's  walk  through  the  church- 
yard of  old  Trinity,  a  voice  from  the  secular  press 
calls  attention  to  a  forgotten  grave  and  in  doing 
honor  to  the  dust  which  it  encloses,  pointedly 
emphasizes  the  great  historical  value  of  these 
monumental  stones.  Two  gentlemen  wandering 
through  the  middle  north  side,  came  to  a  moss 
covered  slab,  nearly  hidden  by  the  sod.  The  let- 
ters of  the  inscription,  worn  by  the  weather  of 
nearly  two  centuries,  were  almost  undecipherable, 
and  it  needed  patient  tracing  to  read  the  legend : 
'*Benj.  Faneuil,  Died  March  31,  1719,  Aged  50 
yrs.  8  mos.  Born  in  Rochell,  France."  All  the 
world  has  heard  of  Faneuil  Hall,  in  Boston,  fam- 
ous as  the  "  Cradle  of  American  Liberty,"  built 
by  Peter  Faneuil  and  by  him  presented  to  Boston 
in  1 740.  But  few  New  Yorkers  know  that  Ben- 
jamin Faneuil,  father  of  Peter  Faneuil,  was  a  resi- 
dent of  this  city,  and  sleeps  beneath  the  trees  of 
Trinity  churchyard.  The  family,  driven  out  of 
France  by  the  cruel  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  by  which  Protestants  were  tolerated  in 
that  kingdom,  came  to  this  country  with  a  large 


6o  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

colony  of  Huguenots  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Industrious,  godly  and  de- 
vout, they  were  a  welcome  addition  to  the  pop- 
ulation of  New  York,  and  they  were  not  long  in 
building  a  church  of  their  own  on  Pine  Street — 
now  known  as  the  Episcopal  Church  Du  Saint 
Esprit — and  in  founding  within  sight  of  the  salt 
waves  of  the  Sound  a  New  Rochelle  which  should 
recall  at  least  by  name  the  memory  of  their  old 
home.  Their  identity  as  a  distinct  class  has  long 
been  lost,  but  old  men  have  told  me  that  they 
have  a  distinct  remembrance  of  the  throng  of 
worshippers  who  came  to  the  city  every  Sunday 
to  worship  in  the  Pine  Street  church.  They  left 
New  Rochelle  at  dawn  and  walked  to  the  city  in 
a  body,  men,  women  and  children,  returning  at 
nightfall,  and  thinking  nothing  of  the  journey  in 
comparison  with  the  blessing  they  sought  and 
found.  When  the  heat  and  cold  of  earth  are 
ended  and  the  sunshine  of  the  resurrection  has 
come,  and  these  devout  children  of  the  kingdom 
go  trooping  up  to  the  great  white  throne,  I  won- 
der if  some  of  us  who  have  had  more  privileges 
will  not  be  glad  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  those  men  of 
simple  faith  ? 


A  PERSON  has  written  to  one  of  the  daily  papers 
suggesting  that  a  monument  shall  be  erected  in 
Trinity  churchyard  to  the  memory  of  Benjamin 
Faneuil,  father  of  the  patriot  who  gave  Faneuil  Hall 
to  Boston.  But  unfortunately  there  are  scores  of 
candidates  for  immortality  in  marble  ahead  of 
the  worthy  old  Huguenot,  and  if  once  the  special 
monument  business  is  entered  upon  it  will  not  be 
ended  until  the  pretty  rural  burial  place  is  trans- 
formed into  a  grove  of  glittering  shafts.  Begin- 
ning with  such  men  as  Bishop  Moore,  Robert 
Fulton,  Alexander  Hamilton,  Gen.  Willett,  Fran- 
cis Lewis,  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, the  Earl  of  Stirhng,  Gen.  Lamb,  Chief  Jus- 
tice Horsmanden,  and  a  host  of  old  time  worthies, 
where  shall  the  list  end  ?  The  shaft  in  modern 
times  has  become  merely  the  marble  finger  that 
points  down  to  a  grave  in  which  the  erstwhile 
possessor  of  riches  is  buried,  and  is  no  longer  the 
indication  of  love  and  trust  that  looks  up  to 
Heaven.  Far  better  is  the  suggestion  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Mulchahey  that  old  St.  Paul's  shall  be  made 
a  Pantheon  of  memorials  to  the  illustrious  dead 

6i 


62  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

of  the  church.  If  this  were  done  the  old  walls 
would  become  a  history  of  the  city  in  stone.  The 
stranger  would  pass  through  the  aisles  and  read 
in  every  nook  and  corner  the  story  of  heroic  pa- 
triotism, of  lives  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  church, 
commonwealth  and  city,  of  the  men  who  in  each 
century  towered  above  their  fellows  crowned  with 
laurels  that  were  not  visible  until  they  were  dead. 
Men  would  read  the  records  with  a  quickening  of 
sluggish  hearts  such  as  they  had  not  known  for 
years,  and  it  would  not  need  the  presence  of  the 
vested  priest  in  the  chancel  and  the  pealing  of  the 
organ,  to  send  them  across  the  threshold  of  the 
church  with  the  feeling  that  they  had  never  stood 
so  close  to  the  glories  of  eternity. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  I  were  asked  to  whom 
the  first  shaft  in  the  churchyard  of  Trinity  should 
be  erected,  I  should  say,  unhesitatingly,  to  the  old 
merchants  of  New  York.  It  was  a  merchant  and 
vestryman  of  Trinity  Church  who  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  gave  his  fortune 
freely  to  the  patriot  cause.  Other  merchants  and 
vestrymen  drew  the  sword,  and  like  General 
Matthew  Clarkson,  won  high  military  honors  in 
the  field.     From  the  business  men  of  New  York 


WALKS   IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  63 

the  parish  has  for  two  hundred  years  drawn  the 
prudent,  sagacious  counsellors  who  have  so  ad- 
ministered its  affairs  as  to  have  made  it  a  blessing 
to  the  entire  municipality.  At  the  upper  end  of 
the  churchyard  stands  a  shaft  to  the  unknown 
soldiers  of  the  Revolution  whose  dust  mingles 
with  the  soil  of  God's  acre,  and  it  would  be  an  act 
of  justice  to  balance  it  by  a  shaft  at  the  lower  end 
telling  how  much  the  parish  owes  to  the  business 
men  whose  graves  are  scattered  over  the  ground. 
In  a  book  that  has  to  do  with  the  old  merchants 
of  New  York,  and  that  was  written  some  thirty 
years  ago,  I  read,  recently,  that  "  a  fair  test  of  the 
standing  of  a  man  in  this  city  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  he  has  been  a  Governor  of  the 
New  York  Hospital."  Then  the  writer  goes  on 
to  say  that  "perhaps  the  best  test,  as  it  is  the 
oldest,  for  selecting  worthy  men,  is  the  corpora- 
tion of  Trinity  Church.  For  160  years  that  so- 
ciety has  selected  its  vestrymen  from  the  very 
cream  of  the  cream  of  our  best  citizens.  You 
cannot  point  to  a  black  sheep  in  the  entire  list 
from  1698."  Is  not  this  a  compliment  and  in- 
asmuch as  business  men  furnished  the  large  ma- 
jority of  the  vestry,  said  I  not  well  that  the  first 


64  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

shaft  ought  to  be  to  the  memory  of  the  old  mer- 
chants of  the  metropolis  ? 

But  if  I  were  a  vestryman,  I  would  vote  on 
every  possible  occasion  against  disfiguring  the 
grounds  with  a  shaft.  I  like  the  churchyard  as  it 
is,  with  its  crumbling  stones,  mossy  inscriptions 
and  quaint  records  of  the  dead.  It  has  a  rural 
air  that  is  in  keeping  with  its  history  of  two  cen- 
turies, and  in  the  course  of  half  a  century  I  have 
become  so  well  acquainted  even  with  the  wild- 
eyed  cherubim  that  haunt  tops  of  the  gravestones 
that  I  have  come  to  fancy  they  look  kindly  at  me 
when  I  stand  before  them  yet  once  again  to  read 
the  records  over  which  they  keep  watch  and  ward, 
and  I  would  not  for  the  world  exchange  them  for 
the  smooth  lustre  of  polished  granite  and  a  new 
inscription.  No,  let  the  ancient  tombstones  stand 
sentinel  as  long  as  their  rocky  fibres  will  hold  to- 
gether. They  are  at  their  worst  just  now,  as  to 
looks.  But  walking  under  elm  and  sycamore  I 
fancy  that  I  can  already  hear  the  stirring  of  the 
infant  leaves  in  the  buds  at  the  end  of  the  branches 
and  I  know  that  the  bluebird  will  be  here  before 
my  next  paper  is  written,  and  with  coming  of  bird 
and  leaf  and  grass  and  the  sunshine  of  Spring  the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  6$ 

old  churchyard  will  do  its  best  to  hide  the  defects 
in  the  tombstones  which  bird  and  tree  alike  revere 
as  comrades  of  their  infancy.  Then,  too,  once 
more  those  who  pass  by  will  look  in  upon  the 
quiet  beauty  of  these  acres  of  the  dead  and  carry 
away  from  these  mossy  stones  a  panacea  of  peace 
for  their  unquiet  hearts  such  as  no  collection  of 
shafts  and  mausoleums  could  supply. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Clarksons  as  typical  mer- 
chants of  New  York,  and  I  might  also  add  as 
typical  vestrymen  of  Trinity.  The  family  name 
became  illustrious  in  the  colony  from  the  time 
Matthew  Clarkson  came  to  this  city,  towards  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  took  up  his 
duties  as  Secretary  of  the  colony.  From  his 
nephew  David  a  site  for  St.  George's  Church  on 
Nassau  Street  was  bought  in  1748  for  five  hun- 
dred pounds,  which  was  afterwards  exchanged  for 
a  site  on  Beekman  Street.  At  the  time  of  the 
breaking  out  of  the  war,  the  elegant  town  house 
of  the  Clarksons  (their  country  seat  was  at  Flush- 
ing) was  considered  one  of  the  show  places  of  the 
city.  It  stood  at  the  corner  of  Whitehall  and 
Pearl  Streets,  was  sumptuously  furnished  with 
London  upholstery,  and  its  fine  table  service  of 
5 


66  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

silver,  cut  glass  and  costly  porcelain  was  the  talk 
of  the  town.  After  the  battle  of  Long  Island  the 
Flushing  mansion  was  turned  into  a  hospital,  and 
the  disastrous  fire  that  followed  the  British  occu- 
pation of  New  York  immediately  afterwards,  swept 
away  the  city  residence.  Yet  the  patriotism  of 
the  Clarksons  did  not  flinch.  Two  of  the  sons, 
David  and  Matthew — the  latter  a  lad  of  nineteen, 
followed  Washington  into  the  field,  and  Matthew 
returned  a  major-general.  The  descendants  of  the 
old  colonial  secretary  became  allied  with  the  Jays, 
De  Peysters,  Van  Cortlands,  Verplancks,  Ruther- 
fords  and  the  old  New  York  families,  and  it  would 
be  difficult  and  lengthsome  to  follow  out  their 
genealogies.  There  are  three  vaults  in  Trinity 
churchyard  bearing  the  name  Clarkson,  and  orig- 
inally there  were  three  brothers,  David,  Levinus 
and  Matthew,  merchants  in  London,  Amsterdam 
and  New  York  respectively.  David  came  to  this 
city  in  1723,  married  and  settled  and  became  one 
of  the  most  tenacious  advocates  of  colonial  in- 
dependence. 

The  close  of  the  Revolutionary  war  found  David 
M.  Clarkson  in  business  at  73  King  near  Pine 
Street ;  later  he  removed  his  counting  house  and 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  6/ 

dwelling  to  No.  3 1  Broadway.  Thomas  S.  Clark- 
son  lived  next  door  at  No.  33  Broadway.  David, 
son  of  David  M.  Clarkson,  lived  at  16  Cortlandt 
Street  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  and  for 
some  years  afterwards.  In  1793  Gen.  Matthew 
Clarkson  purchased  the  site  of  the  old  family  resi- 
dence, at  Whitehall  and  Pearl  Streets,  and  here 
built  a  large  brick  mansion  where  he  lived  till  his 
death  in  1825.  I  have  heard  old  men  who  knew 
these  and  other  members  of  the  family  speak  of 
them  as  noble  specimens  of  their  race.  One  of 
their  contemporaries  said  to  me  once,  "  It  was  a 
sight  to  see  them  all  go  to  Trinity  Church  as  they 
moved  slowly  and  dignifiedly  up  Broadway  in  the 
early  twenties  and  thirties.  And  the  women  of 
the  family  were  as  gracious  as  they  were  stately 
in  my  eyes." 

Close  by  one  of  the  family  vaults  of  the  Clark- 
sons  is  the  burial  place  of  John  B.  Coles,  eminent 
as  a  merchant,  philanthropist  and  civic  official. 
He  was  Alderman  of  the  First  Ward  from  1797 
to  1 801  and  again  from  181 5  to  181 8,  in  the  time 
when  most  of  the  wealth  and  aristocracy  of  the 
city  was  embraced  within  its  limits,  and  it  was 
an  honor  to  be  its  municipal  representative.     Dur- 


68  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

ing  most  of  these  years,  too,  he  served  as  a  ves- 
tryman of  Trinity  parish.  A  flour  merchant  on  a 
large  scale,  he  had  his  store  at  No.  i  South  Street 
and  his  home  at  No.  i  State  Street.  In  the  whole 
city  there  were  no  pleasanter  places  than  those  in 
which  to  live  and  do  business.  He  could  stand 
upon  the  mansion  steps  of  his  home  and  watch 
the  ships  pass  up  and  down  the  East  and  Hudson 
Rivers,  and  he  could  stroll  upon  the  Battery  with 
his  business  cronies  and  drink  in  the  salt  air  un- 
sullied by  the  smell  of  steam  and  the  oil  of  ma- 
chinery and  with  its  breezes  unbroken  by  the 
screech  of  the  steam  whistle.  Here  he  lived  un- 
til about  sixty  years  ago,  when  he  was  gathered 
to  his  fathers,  leaving  a  name  for  rectitude  and 
charity  which  any  man  might  envy.  And  yet  he 
was  only  one  of  many  such  who  have  helped  bear 
the  burdens  of  Trinity  Parish  with  honor  during 
its  career  of  two  centuries. 

Such  men  shine  at  best  in  times  of  trouble. 
Probably  there  was  never  more  distress  in  New 
York  than  in  the  summer  of  1798  when  the  yel- 
low fever  made  its  first  visitation.  An  old  mer- 
chant, who  was  taken  sick  at  his  store  on  Coen- 
ties  Slip,  was  the  first  victim,  and  several  of  his 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  69 

neighbors  followed,  and  then  a  universal  panic  en- 
sued. Nearly  all  who  could  leave  town  did  so, 
moving  up  to  Greenwich  Village,  Chelsea  and 
Harlem,  far  away  from  infection.  John  B.  Coles 
was  one  of  those  who  remained  behind  and  stood 
at  the  post  of  danger.  He  went  from  house  to 
house,  bearing  relief  in  his  hands  and  encourage- 
ment in  his  speech,  and  of  all  men,  had  no  idea 
that  he  was  doing  anything  beyond  his  bare  duty 
to  his  race.  The  section  of  the  city  in  which  he 
lived  was  boarded  in,  but  this  did  not  frighten 
him.  Custom-house,  post  office,  banks  and  in- 
surance companies  had  all  been  removed  to 
Greenwich  Village,  but  he  kept  right  on  at  his 
work,  and  left  his  business  to  take  care  of  itself. 
It  is  curious  to  read  in  the  publications  of  the  day 
how  this  brave  citizen  levied  his  contributions  on 
the  absentees  who,  it  is  only  just  to  say,  gave 
willingly  of  everything  except  themselves.  John 
Watts,  from  his  farm  on  the  Harlem  River,  sent 
down  oxen,  sheep  and  forty  barrels  of  Indian 
meal.  Dominick  Lynch,  the  friend  of  Irving, 
sent  pigs,  oxen,  sheep  and  chickens.  John  Mur- 
ray, Jr.,  brother  of  Lindley  Murray,  the  gram- 
marian, came  generously  forward  in   September 


70  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

with  a  gift  of  $10,000,  and  Archibald  Gracie, 
Gen.  Horatio  Gates,  Charles  L.  Camman,  Her- 
man LeRoy,  Thomas  Buchanan  and  other  well- 
known  citizens,  chiefly  merchants,  contributed 
freely  of  their  means.  John  B.  Coles  sleeps  un- 
der a  plain  tombstone  slab,  as  he  would  have 
wished,  but  if  a  time  comes  for  distributing  shafts 
to  the  meritorious,  will  not  those  who  have  the 
passing  of  judgment  be  compelled  to  decide  that 
the  plain,  old-fashioned  citizen  and  merchant,  who 
served  God  and  his  country  with  all  his  heart, 
mind,  soul  and  strength,  and  never  dreamed  that 
he  was  doing  aught  but  the  plain,  everyday  duty 
of  his  life,  deserves  the  first  of  the  honors  dis- 
tributed. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  inscription  upon  the 
stone  that  covers  the  vault  of  the  Earl  of  Stirling, 
has  often  attracted  me  to  it,  as  it  lies  on  the  west- 
ern slope  close  by  the  fence  in  the  southern  half 
of  the  graveyard,  and  yet,  perhaps,  the  only  pe- 
culiarity about  it  is  that  it  differs  from  the  modern 
American  mortuary  inscription  and  groups  the 
family  together  at  the  grave.  The  stone  bears 
these  words  :  "Vault  built  1738.  James  Alexan- 
der and  his  descendants,  by  his  son  William,  Earl 


WALKS  IN   OtJR  CHURCHYARDS.  ^I 

of  Stirling,  and  his  daughters  Mary,  wife  of  Peter 
Van  Brugh  ;  Elizabeth,  wife  of  John  Stevens ; 
Catharine,  wife  of  Walter  Rutherford ;  Susane, 
wile  of  John  Reid."  The  story  of  the  third  Earl 
of  Stirling,  who  figured  with  such  conspicuous 
honor  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  is  familiar  to 
every  child  who  studies  history,  and  the  loveliness 
of  his  two  daughters,  Lady  Mary  Watts  and  Lady 
Kitty  Duer,  shed  brightness  upon  the  Republican 
court  of  President  Washington.  There  are  a 
score  or  more  of  our  leading  families  of  to-day 
who  are  proud  to  trace  a  connection  with  the  il- 
lustrious Earl  and  his  daughters.  The  Livings- 
tons, Jays,  Stuyvesants,  Rutherfords  are  of  these, 
and  the  commercial  and  military,  the  banking 
business  and  the  literary  profession,  are  strangely 
blended  among  those  who  gather  about  this  tomb 
and  claim  kinship  to  the  stout  old  Scotch  Earl, 
who  sacrificed  a  coronet  in  drawing  the  sword  for 
freedom. 

As  I  turn  from  the  tomb  of  this  race  of  warriors 
and  look  around  upon  the  familiar  city  and  colo- 
nial names  of  Hamersley,  Mesier,  Hoffman,  Ap- 
thorpe,  Seymour,  Davis,  Desbrosses  and  others 
that  meet  my  eye  as  I  walk  up  and  down    under 


72  WALKS  IN  OtJR  CHURCHYARDS. 

the  eaves  of  the  grand  old  church,  I  think  how 
well  adapted  to  the  dead  as  to  the  living  is  the 
prayer  of  the  church  for  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men.  Surely  no  such  petition  for  humanity 
has  been  framed  before  or  since.  Those  who 
sleep  here  were  gathered  in  to  hold  the  faith  in 
unity  of  spirit,  and  after  patience  under  their 
sufferings  there  came  to  all — priest  and  soldier, 
merchant  and  lawyer,  physician  and  storekeeper, 
the  little  child  and  the  famous  statesman — a  happy 
issue  out  of  all  their  afflictions.  I  could  fancy 
that  if  they  could  now  step  up  for  a  moment 
from  their  graves  how  gladly  they  would  greet 
one  another,  forgetful  of  the  class  distinctions 
that  had  mouldered  into  dust  with  their  coffins 
and  remembering  only  the  bond  of  peace.  I  had 
never  realized  as  I  did  then,  standing  amid  the 
graves  of  long  ago,  the  sweet  and  loving  wis- 
dom of  this  prayer  which  our  mother  the  Church 
puts  daily  into  our  mouths.  I  never  understood 
so  well  what  it  meant  to  give  a  cup  of  water,  in 
His  name,  to  the  perishing. 

It  is  beginning  to  rain  again  and  I  leave  the 
churchyard  reluctantly.  I  had  been  wishing  to 
hear  once  more  the  song  of  my  old  friend  the  blue- 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  73 

bird  who  has  already  been  reported  within  less 
than  a  hundred  miles  of  his  old  haunts  above  the 
tombstones,  but  he  will  only  come  with  the  sun- 
shine. If  he  could  only  bring  us  a  message  from 
the  land  beyond  the  swellings  of  Jordan,  in  which 
there  is  neither  night,  nor  storm  nor  sea,  and  the 
work  of  the  kingdom  shall  keep  hand  and  heart 
busy  perpetually  in  His  service,  or  bid  us  whisper 
about  it  to  the  silent  sleepers  under  the  sod  !  But 
the  time  is  not  long.  Happy  is  it  for  him  who 
is  glad  to  he  down  to  sleep  with  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men,  with  other  birds  to  sing  over  his 
grave  and  God's  sunshine  to  lighten  his  darkness. 


VI. 


One  of  the  most  peaceful  and  pathetic  spots  of 
earth  that  I  ever  saw,  is  the  graveyard  of  the 
Moravian  community  in  the  old-fashioned  village 
of  Nazareth,  in  Pennsylvania.  A  bit  of  meadow, 
shaded  by  forest  trees  under  which  the  Indian 
once  pitched  his  tent,  it  was  set  apart  as  God's 
Acre  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  ago.  It  is 
now  thickly  sown  with  the  dead,  but  in  its  en- 
tire extent  there  is  no  monument :  only  on  a 
hillock  just  beyond  the  enclosure,  stands  a  mod- 
est shaft  to  commemorate  the  missionaries  and 
their  red  converts  who  were  slain  at  their  posts 
by  bands  of  hostile  savages.  A  broad  path  di- 
vides the  graveyard  in  twain.  On  one  side  lie  the 
men  who  died  in  the  faith  and  the  women  rest 
on  the  other  side.  A  plain  slab  of  brown  stone 
or  of  marble  rests  upon  each  quiet  bosom,  and 
rich  and  poor  alike  are  equal  there  as  they  will 
be  when  risen.  There  is  still  another  division  of 
the  sleepers.  Here,  in  a  long  line  and  clustered 
close  together  with  almost  military  precision,  sleep 
a  row  of  married  men,  next  comes  a  row  of  single 
men  and  a  row  of  boys  follows.     So  it  is  on  the 

74 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  75 

other  side.  The  Httle  girl  babies  form  one  group 
and  another  is  made  by  the  single  women  of  the 
community,  and  side  by  side  lie  the  wives  and 
mothers  who  made  home  happy.  Each  is  placed 
in  death  where  he  or  she  belongs  by  rule,  and  the 
grave  next  to  the  last  that  has  been  filled  always 
opens  to  the  next  that  dies.  It  may  seem  arbi- 
trary, but  the  Moravians  are  very  tender  towards 
their  dead.  They  use  no  hearse  or  hireling  bear- 
ers, but  carry  their  dead  with  their  own  hands 
from  his  home  in  life  to  his  final  place  of  rest,  and, 
preceded  by  the  clergyman  and  the  four  official 
players  on  the  trombone,  the  long  line  of  men, 
women  and  children  follow  reverently  on  foot  and 
sing  hymns  of  faith  at  the  grave.  Then  on  Easter 
morning,  before  it  is  yet  day,  the  trombones  sum- 
mon all  the  people  to  the  graveyard,  and  there  at 
the  rising  of  the  sun  they  march  through  the 
broad  paths  and  scatter  flowers  upon  the  graves 
of  all  the  sleepers,  while  they  sing  hymns  that 
are  full  of  the  promise  of  the  resurrection. 

I  know  no  more  peaceful  and  impressive  spot 
than  this ;  impressive  because  of  its  lack  of  pre- 
tension— and  yet,  as  I  have  said,  the  picture  had 
a  deeply  pathetic  side.     It  seemed  unnatural  that 


^6  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

the  wife  should  be  separated  from  the  husband 
and  the  child  from  its  parents.  I  ventured  to  ex- 
press this  feeling  to  the  grey-haired  minister  upon 
whom  I  had  called  for  information,  and  he  said 
quietly  that  it  was  the  rule  of  the  Church,  and 
that  he  was  opposed  to  any  display  or  favoritism 
in  death.  But  his  wife,  gentle-eyed  and  grey  as 
himself  and  keeping  the  sweetness  and  simplicity 
of  girlhood  even  in  age,  asked  me  if  I  had  no- 
ticed that  in  one  case  it  had  so  happened  that  a 
minister  and  his  wife  lay  buried  at  either  end  of 
a  row  so  that  their  graves  came  next  to  each 
other  and  only  separated  by  the  main  path.  Then 
she  added,  with  a  look  of  unutterable  love  bent 
upon  the  quiet  old  scholar  at  the  fireside,  "  I  have 
always  hoped  it  may  happen  so  to  my  husband 
and  myself  when  we  come  to  die." 

The  look  and  the  words  were  the  unprompted 
revelation  of  a  loving  though  reverent  heart  and 
they  have  come  back  to  me  more  than  once  when 
wandering  among  the  old  brown  stone  slabs  that 
cover  the  entrance  to  so  many  family  vaults. 
Usually  there  is  but  a  name  and  perhaps  a  date 
also,  upon  the  stone,  but  that  is  enough  to  indi- 
cate to  the  survivors  all  that  they  need  to  know 


WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS.  77 

and  to  point  to  the  antiquarian  its  mute  tiiough 
most  interesting  connection  with  the  past.  In 
the  narrow  home  to  which  that  stone  is  the  only 
door,  half  a  dozen  generations  may  sleep,  but  the 
family  tie  is  perpetuated  in  the  ashes  gathered 
there,  and  the  simple  slab  is  more  elegant  than  a 
Grecian  temple  in  Woodlawn  or  an  architectural 
Pantheon  in  Greenwood.  I  am  to  a  prejudice  in 
favor  of  the  family  vault,  perhaps  for  the  reason 
that  half  a  dozen  States  hold  the  ashes  of  those 
of  my  own  family  whom  I  knew  and  loved.  It 
was  only  the  other  day  that  in  walking  through 
this  ancient  churchyard  I  said  to  Master  Felix 
— whose  little  hand  has  been  in  mine  through 
all  my  antiquarian  researches  in  old  New  York 
— that  I  should  like,  when  brain  and  pen  have 
ceased  from  work,  to  lie  down  to  sleep  some- 
where in  the  city  I  have  loved  so  long  and 
well,  after  the  organ  of  old  Trinity  had  pealed 
and  the  rosy-cheeked  little  choristers,  of  whom 
I  was  one  once,  had  sung  a  hymn  of  triumph 
over  my  dust.  Then  my  heart  spoke  out  but  not 
in  words,  and  I  thought  that  if  far  in  the  next 
century  he  was  brought  to  sleep  at  my  side,  his 
hand  would  be  next  to  mine  and  I  would  reach 


yS  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

out  to  take  it  first  of  all  in  the  morning  of  the 
resurrection. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  church  and  close  to 
the  sacred  edifice  is  a  plain  slab  of  brown  stone 
bearing  the  names  of  Michael  and  Elizabeth 
Thody  in  letters  that  seem  almost  as  perfect  as 
when  first  inscribed,  nearly  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ago.  Who  this  couple  were  I  do  not 
know,  for  they  left  no  mark  in  the  history  of  the 
little  city  of  their  day  beyond  the  fact  that  Mi- 
chael Thody  was  assistant  Alderman  of  the  South 
Ward  from  1756  to  1766.  But  I  made  a  pause 
here  in  my  pilgrimage  because  this  record  of  the 
parents  is  followed  by  the  names  of  eleven  of  their 
children,  who  were  all  called  away  in  infancy  or 
the  bloom  of  youth.  Such  patriarchal  households 
are  not  common  in  these  days,  and  there  is  some- 
thing touching  in  the  fact  that  the  Good  Shepherd 
gathered  these  lambs  into  His  bosom  one  by  one, 
not  letting  their  tender  feet  be  bruised  by  the 
rough  pathways  of  earth,  and  that  the  family 
circle  was  unbroken  in  the  grave  that  garnered  its 
members.  There  is  something  irrepressibly  sweet 
in  this  recognition  of  the  family  tie  in  God's  field 
of  the  dead,  especially  where,  as  in  this  case  "  He 


WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS.  79 

giveth  thus  households  like  a  flock "  and  then 
takes  them  away  in  one  unbroken  group  from  the 
snares  and  sorrows  of  earth  to  the  green  pastures 
beside  the  still  waters. 

Perhaps  the  family  idea  finds  no  better  example 
than  in  the  vaults  that  bear  the  honored  name  of 
Ludlow.  From  the  time  of  the  foundation  of  the 
parish,  that  name  has  been  prominent  in  its  an- 
nals. Gabriel  Ludlow,  ancestor  of  the  family  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  was  a  member  of  the 
vestry  from  1697  to  1704,  and  was  buried  in  his 
vault  which  is  now  under  the  present  edifice.  His 
son  Gabriel  held  the  same  position  for  twenty- 
seven  years  prior  to  1 769,  and  another  son,  Henry, 
acted  in  the  same  capacity  for  twelve  years  of 
that  period.  Since  then,  Gabriel  H.,  Charles, 
Thomas  W.,  Gabriel  W.  Ludlow  and  other  mem- 
bers of  this  numerous  family  have  held  office  in 
Trinity  parish,  and  have  created  an  enviable 
record  for  their  labors  in  behalf  of  church  and 
charity.  The  gallant  young  Lieutenant  Ludlow 
whose  name  is  imperishably  associated  with  that 
of  the  heroic  Captain  Lawrence,  of  the  Chesa- 
peake, belonged  to  this  old  New  York  family, 
whose  first  representative,  the  original  Gabriel,  left 


8o  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

twelve  children  to  perpetuate  his  name  and  en- 
twine it  with  the  leading  families  of  the  city  and 
state.  Descended  from  ancient  and  noble  ances- 
try in  England,  they  naturally  became  connected 
here  by  marriage  with  their  social  peers  in  the 
English  colony — the  Livingstons,  Harrisons,  Ver- 
plancks,  Waddingtons,  Ogdens  and  Mortons. 
Many  who  read  this  paper  have  still  a  vivid  re- 
membrance, no  doubt,  of  the  fine  old  mansion 
erected  on  State  Street  by  Carey  Ludlow  (grand- 
son of  the  original  Gabriel)  in  1784,  and  inhabited 
for  many  years  later  by  General  Jacob  Morton, 
who  married  Carey  Ludlow's  daughter  Catharine, 
the  belle  of  her  day.  Its  oak  chimney-pieces, 
wainscoting  imported  from  England,  its  double 
stairway  to  the  porch  and  its  ample  balcony  which 
gave  a  magnificent  view  of  the  harbor,  made  it 
a  noteworthy  edifice.  As  to  its  builder,  I  shall 
always  feel  a  debtor  to  the  great-hearted  citizen 
who  set  out  three  hundred  trees  on  State  Street 
and  the  Battery  to  give  shade  to  a  coming  gen- 
eration. No  doubt  it  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  recall 
as  he  sits  in  the  shade  of  the  Tree  of  Life  and  lets 
memory  come  back  to  these  scenes. 

Very  different  from  these  family  gatherings  in 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  8 1 

the  windowless  homes  under  the  sod,  is  the  record 
of  a  soHtary  headstone  at  the  rear  of  the  church 
and  towards  the  north.  Its  inscription  reads : 
*'  In  memory  of  Michael  Cresap,  First  Captain  of 
the  Rifle  BattalHons  and  son  to  Colonel  Thomas 
Cresap,  who  departed  this  hfe  October  i8th, 
A.  D.  1775."  The  soldier  who  rests  beneath  was 
the  son  of  a  neighbor  and  friend  of  General 
Washington,  had  done  brilliant  service  in  the  In- 
dian wars  on  the  frontiers  of  Virginia  and  had  at- 
tained the  rank  of  Colonel  of  Volunteers  in  that 
state.  Unfortunately  the  men  in  his  command, 
without  his  orders,  exterminated  the  family  of  the 
Indian  chief  Logan,  "  the  friend  of  the  white 
man,"  and  many  a  schoolboy  of  my  day  declaimed 
the  noble  speech  of  Logan  in  which  he  denounced 
Colonel  Cresap,  declared  that  he  had  glutted  his 
vengeance  and  asked  '*  Who  is  there  to  mourn  for 
Logan  ?  Not  one  !  "  without  the  least  idea  that 
Logan's  foe  slept  quietly  in  Trinity  churchyard. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  Michael 
Cresap  raised  a  cpmpany  of  picked  riflemen, 
drilled  them  carefully  and  marched  to  take  his 
place  by  the  side  of  Washington,  the  friend  of  his 
family,  who  was  then  besieging  Boston.     So  much 


82  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

had  been  said  about  their  marksmanship  and  drill 
that  when  they  reached  New  York,  the  riflemen 
from  the  Blue  Ridge  were  compelled  to  give  an 
exhibition  in  "  the  Fields,"  now  the  City  Hall 
Park.  His  military  career  lasted  but  a  few 
months.  The  doctors  say  he  died  of  a  slow 
fever  ;  tradition  declares  that  his  heart  was  broken 
because  of  the  unjust  accusation  made  against 
him  in  connection  with  the  massacre  of  Logan's 
wife  and  children.  In  October  he  came  back  to 
New  York,  dying  here  a  week  after  his  arrival 
and  being  interred  in  Trinity  churchyard.  His  ob- 
sequies were  marked  by  an  unusual  display.  A 
newspaper  of  the  time  says :  "  His  funeral  was  at- 
tended from  his  lodgings  by  the  independent  com- 
panies of  militia  and  by  the  most  respectable  in- 
habitants, through  the  principal  streets  to  the 
church.  The  Grenadiers  of  the  First  Battallion 
fired  three  volleys  over  his  grave.  The  whole  was 
conducted  with  great  decency  and  in  military  form." 
Alone  and  apart  from  all  their  kindred  are  the 
graves  of  Cresap  and  Logan.  It  may  be  a  mere 
coincidence,  but  the  student  of  history  may  think 
otherwise. 

Not  far  from  the  grave  of   this  soldier  of  the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  83 

Revolution  is  a  memorial  in  stone  which  tells 
of  another  sort  of  warfare  and  other  and  more 
lasting  triumphs.  It  hes  upon  the  ground  a  sim- 
ple and  unpretentious  slab,  but  it  has  a  story  of 
its  own  to  tell  and  an  interesting  one.  This  is  the 
graven  legend  :  **  Here  lieth  ye  body  of  Susannah 
Nean,  wife  of  Elias  Nean,  born  in  ye  city  of  Ro- 
chelle,  in  France,  in  ye  year  1660,  who  departed 
this  life  25  day  of  December  1720,  aged  60  years." 
"  Here  lieth  enterred  ye  body  of  Elias  Nean,  cat- 
echist  in  New  York,  Born  in  Soubise,  in  ye  Prov- 
ince of  Caentonge  in  France  in  ye  year  1662,  who 
departed  this  life  8  day  of  September  1722  aged 
60  years."  *'This  inscription  was  restored  by  or- 
der of  their  descendant  of  the  6th  generation, 
Elizabeth  Champlin  Perry,  widow  of  the  late 
Com'r.  O.  H.  Perry,  of  the  U.  S.  Navy,  May, 
Anno  Domini,  1846."  Thus  much  the  stone  says, 
but  it  does  not  tell  that  Elias  Nean  suffered  im- 
prisonment and  was  sent  to  the  galleys  in  France 
because  he  would  not  renounce  the  reformed  re- 
ligion; that  he  was  not  merely  catechist  and 
schoolmaster  but  a  vestryman  of  Trinity  Church 
for  many  years,  and  that  such  distinguished 
names   as  the  Behnonts  and  Vintons  as  well  as 


84  WALKS   IN    OUR    CHURCHYARDS. 

the  Perrys  are  numbered  among  his  descendants. 
The  number  of  Huguenot  refugees  and  their  de- 
scendants who  are  buried  in  Trinity  churchyard 
is  very  large.  The  first  burial  vault  at  the  south- 
ern entrance  bears  the  name  of  **  D.  Contant,"  a 
victim  of  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes 
which  cost  France  so  dearly  and  enriched  America 
with  the  best  blood  of  that  kingdom.  It  was  this 
persecution  which  gave  us  the  Bayards,  Jays,  Bou- 
dinots  and  Tillons,  and  peopled  South  Carolina 
with  such  Revolutionary  leaders  as  Marion  and 
Laurens,  which  erected  Bowdoin  College,  the 
literary  cradle  of  Longfellow  and  Hawthorne  and 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  erected  Faneuil  Hall  to 
be  the  cradle  of  liberty.  One  of  the  most  unique 
of  the  Huguenot  memorials  in  Trinity  churchyard 
is  a  headstone  with  a  quaint  inscription  in  Latin, 
which  tells  that  Withamus  de  Marisco,  "  most 
noble  on  the  side  of  his  father's  mother,"  born  on 
the  8th  of  May,  1720,  died  January  ii,  1765,  and 
is  buried  here.  His  family  had  lived  in  the  colony 
for  nearly  a  century  and  their  name  had  become 
Anglicised  into  Marsh,  but  when  the  exile  came 
to  die,  his  thoughts  turned  to  the  home  of  his  an- 
cestors and  his  forgotten  glories,  and   his  last  act 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  85 

in  life  was  to  write  the  inscription  which  says  so 

little   and  suggests  so  much  about  the  pioneers 

of  church  and  state  in  the  colonial  days  of  the 

republic. 

As  I  turn   away  from  this  humble  gravestone 

and    its   unwritten    romance,   an    inscription  that 

looks  like  poetry  catches  my  eye  and  I  stop  for  a 

moment  to  read  it.     The  stone  bears  the  date  of 

a  death  that  occurred  in  the  year  1730,  before  the 

genius  of  poesy  had   crossed  the  Atlantic  to  our 

shores.     Here   is   the    record   as  engraved  by  a 

sculptor  who  evidently  had  no  rhythm  in  his  soul, 

or  he  would  have  divided  the  lines  differently : 

Let  no 
One  Mourn,  the  Reason 
Why  her  soul  Ascended 
To  God  on  high.     There 
With  Angels  and  Arch 
Angels  for  to  dwell 
Hallelujah!     Hallelujah. 

Made  by  herself. 

Poor  soul !  Her  little  vanity  causes  a  smile  after 
all  the  years  have  passed  and  yet  her  triumphant 
faith  must  have  blotted  its  memory  out  of  the 
great  Book  of  Remembrance  long  ago.  There  is 
no  undertone  of  doubt  to  this  dead  woman's  liv- 
ing cry  of  victory. 


86  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

They  tell  me  that  already  half  a  dozen  blue- 
birds have  made  their  appearance  in  the  old 
churchyard  and  whistled  a  melodious  greeting  to 
their  old  friends  the  sparrows.  A  pioneer  robin 
also  paused  there  in  his  flight  on  a  sunshiny  day, 
rested  for  a  moment  in  an  elm  and  then  flew  down 
and  chirped  to  the  tombstones  a  promise  of  the 
near  coming  of  spring.  I  have  seen  none  of  these 
messengers  yet,  but  I  marked  the  swelling  of  the 
brown  tips  of  branches  on  tree  and  shrub.  I 
know  that  they  are  ready  to  burst  out  with  the 
new  life  of  another  spring,  and  that  presently  they 
will  put  forth  slender  fingers  of  green,  as  fair  and 
delicate  as  the  fingers  of  an  infant.  Then,  awak- 
ened from  their  sleep  the  trees  of  the  wood  shall 
clap  these  hands  of  verdure,  as  they  swing  to 
and  fro  to  the  motion  of  the  breeze,  for  very  joy 
at  the  coming  of  the  Lord  in  the  sunshine  of 
another  summer. 


c  c  c 

c  c  c 


VII. 


"  My  beloved  spake,  and  saith  unto  me,  Rise 
up,  my  love,  my  fair  one,  and  come  away.  For, 
lo.  the  winter  is  passed,  the  rain  is  over  and  gone ; 
the  flowers  appear  on  the  earth  ;  the  time  of  the 
singing  birds  is  come,  and  the  voice  of  the  turtle 
is  heard  in  our  land."  Was  there  ever  a  sweeter 
song  of  spring  than  this  which  echoed  in  the  vine- 
yards of  the  Holy  Land  three  thousand  years  ago 
when  the  tender  grape  leaves  "  gave  a  good 
smell  "  and  the  orchards  of  pomegranates  were  in 
blossom  ?  Its  melody  sweeps  by  me  now  as  I 
walk  in  the  old  churchyard  and  mark  how  the  air 
is  fragrant  with  the  freshness  of  the  buds  that 
have  groped  theit  way  through  the  brown  earth, 
with  the  scent  of  blooms  on  the  lilac  bush  and 
the  delicate  odor  of  leaves  that  have  slumbered 
all  winter  in  the  heart  of  the  elm  and  dreamed  of 
the  spring  upon  which  they  are  entering.  The 
birds  have  come  with  the  warm  south  wind  to 
make  music  at  the  wakening  of  tree  and  flower, 
and  they  thrill  with  joy  as  they  hail  this  new  crea- 
tion and  each  tiny,  swelling  breast  is  a  fountain  of 
gratitude  which  shames  the  race  that  receives  so 

8; 


SB  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

much  and  gives  back  so  little.  If  there  were  no 
other  preachers  of  the  resurrection,  bird  and  bud 
would  proclaim  it  in  this  old  churchyard  to  the 
living  and  in  behalf  of  the  dead. 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  time  of 
the  singing  birds  has  come  to  some  of  those  who 
now  sleep  under  the  shadow  of  the  massive  pile 
which  is  known  to  a  new  generation  as  old  Trinity. 
A  score  of  years  before  the  first  church  edifice  of 
the  parish  was  erected,  a  burial  plot  was  opened 
by  the  city  authorities  outside  of  the  wall  of  pali- 
sades built  for  the  city's  defence  and  this  was 
added  to  the  church  grounds  a  few  years  after  the 
church  was  opened  for  service.  It  was  a  sightly 
place.  The  green  sward  stretched  down  to  the  river 
and  ended  in  a  bold  bluff.  At  the  end  of  the  city 
wall  was  a  green  knoll  known  as  Oyster  Pasty 
Mount,  surrounded  by  a  battery  of  guns.  The 
commerce  of  the  little  metropolis  passed  by  in 
sight  of  the  stones  above  the  sleeper's  dust. 
Church  and  graveyard  lay  beyond  the  toil  and 
traffic  of  the  town,  embowered  in  green  and  amid 
a  rural  landscape.  The  original  charter  of  Trinity 
parish  provided  for  the  erection  of  a  church 
"near  "  to  the  city  of  New  York.     It  is  difficult 


WALKS   IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  89 

to  imagine  the  scene  that  was  presented  to  the 
eyes  of  the  first  worshippers  in  the  church  that 
was  even  in  that  day  the  pride  of  the  city.  They 
came  from  city  homes  on  the  BowHng  Green,  in 
Hanover  Square,  on  Queen  Street  and  in  the 
Broad  Way  and  as  they  neared  the  church  door 
they  saw  green  fields  stretching  before  them  and 
a  river  on  either  hand.  At  their  feet,  then  as  now, 
were  the  graves  of  the  dead.  But  there  were  no 
noises  of  the  workaday  world  to  break  upon  the 
music  of  the  wild-wood  singers  and  trees  of  the 
primeval  forest  stood  sentinel  above  the  graves 
and  wild  flowers  of  the  wood  crowned  them  with 
their  dainty  beauty.  In  the  warm,  bright  sun- 
shine of  to-day  and  with  the  sweet  scents  of  spring 
around  me,  as  I  close  my  eyes  for  a  moment  I 
can  leap  across  the  separating  gulf  of  two  centu- 
ries and  see  the  little  churchyard  in  its  framework 
of  green  fields,  bits  of  forest,  lumbering  windmills 
and  distant  villas,  a  spot  most  fit  to  be  called 
God's  acre. 

One  of  the  earliest  burials  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  the  church  edifice  was  that  of  a 
noble  English  lady,  daughter  and  sister  of  an  earl 
and  a  viscountess  in  her  own   right.     When  the 


90  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

workmen  were  removing  the  foundation  of  the 
tower  of  Trinity  Church,  in  1839,  ^  vaulted  grave 
was  opened  which  was  found  to  contain  the  frag- 
ments of  a  coffin,  a  large  plate  and  the  ashes  of 
Lady  Cornbury,  wife  of  the  royal  Governor  of 
New  York,  who  died  in  this  city  August  11,  1706, 
and  was  buried  in  the  churchyard,  close  to  Broad- 
way and  opposite  Wall  Street.  A  daughter  of 
the  Earl  of  Richmond,  she  was  in  her  own  right 
Baroness  Clifton,  and  her  arms,  together  with  her 
pedigree,  date  of  death  and  age  were  found  rudely 
graven  on  the  plate.  Lord  Cornbury  was  son  of 
the  Earl  of  Clarendon  and  first  cousin  to  Queen 
Anne.  A  man  of  many  faults,  he  was  devoted  to 
his  wife,  watched  by  her  bedside  night  and  day 
and  mourned  her  sincerely.  His  name  is  affixed 
to  the  charter  of  Trinity  Church.  A  new  vault 
was  provided  for  the  remains  of  Lady  Cornbury 
and  in  this  the  poor  relics  of  the  dead,  with  the 
plate  of  silver  whose  rude  emblazonment  made  a 
strange  contrast  to  its  pompous  display  of  heraldic 
pride,  were  deposited.  Solitary  and  alone  in  its 
tomb,  the  dust  of  this  noble  and  gracious  lady, 
who  perished  in  her  youth  in  a  land  of  strangers, 
has  echoed  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  the  foot- 


WALKS  IN  OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  9I 

Steps  of  busy  men  and  the  roar  of  a  multitude 
who  long  since  ceased  to  pay  respect  to  royalty. 
Not  far  from  the  resting  place  of  one  who  could 
call  England's  Queen  her  cousin  and  who  in  life 
had  worn  a  coronet  in  court  circles,  is  a  grave 
lying  hard  by  the  north  door  of  the  church,  which 
illustrates  strikingly  the  strange  contrasts  pre- 
sented by  Trinity  churchyard.  The  slab  which 
was  restored  and  reverently  placed  above  it  by 
the  corporation  of  the  parish  tells  in  quaint  style 
the  story  of  a  useful  life.  A  printer  sleeps  be- 
neath it.  But  he  was  a  man  as  exemplary  for  his 
piety,  patriotism  and  integrity  as  for  his  work  as 
a  craftsman.  Born  in  England,  he  emigrated  to 
Pennsylvania  before  the  city  of  Philadelphia  was 
laid  out.  In  1693  he  removed  to  New  York  and 
established  the  first  printing  press  in  this  city. 
Here  in  his  shop  on  Queen  Street,  at  the  sign  of 
the  Bible,  the  first  book  published  in  the  colony, 
"A  Letter  of  Advice  to  a  Young  Gentleman 
Leaving  the  University,  concerning  his  Behaviour 
and  Conversation  in  the  World  "  was  "  printed 
and  sold  by  Wm.  Bradford,  Printer  to  his  Majesty, 
King  William."  Here  also  was  isued,  Oct.  16, 
1725,  the  first  newspaper  in  the  city  of  New  York, 


92  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

a  small  foolscap  sheet  called  the  **  New  York  Ga- 
zette." A  man  of  enterprise  he  was  the  first  who 
printed  an  English  edition  of  the  Bible  in  the 
Middle  Colonies  ;  the  first  who  printed  the  Eng- 
lish Prayer  Book  here ;  founder  of  the  first  paper 
mill  in  the  country ;  printer  of  the  first  map  of 
New  York  ;  for  upwards  of  fifty  years  printer  to 
the  colonial  government  and  the  earliest  champion 
of  the  freedom  of  the  press  and  its  rights.  To 
such  a  man  an  Earl's  coronet  would  be  a  bauble. 
The  venerable  printer  could  better  appreciate  the 
pension  he  had  earned  by  half  a  century's  labor 
in  the  service  of  the  government.  Indeed,  printer 
Keimer  of  Philadelphia,  from  whom  Benjamin 
Franklin  learned  his  trade,  was  moved  to  envy  by 
the  liberality  which  made  Bradford  passing  rich 
on  sixty  pounds  a  year,  and  the  envious  dweller 
in  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love  closed  some  dog- 
gerel upon  the  event  with  these  lines : 

"  Though  quite  past  his  age  and  old  as  my  gran'num, 
The  government  pays  him  pounds  sixty  per  annum." 

Every  pilgrim  to  Trinity  churchyard  can  read 
the  inscription  on  Bradford's  tomb,  but  it  is  not  so 
easy  to  find  the  queer,  old-fashioned  obituary  no- 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  93 

tice  written  by  one  of  his  own  apprentices  who 
sleeps  in  an  honored  grave  on  the  other  side  of 
the  sacred  enclosure.  The  '*  New  York  Gazette, 
Revived  in  the  Weekly  Post  Boy,"  for  Monday, 
May  25,  1752,  says:  "Last  Saturday  Evening 
departed  this  Life,  Mr.  Wm.  Bradford,  Printer,  of 
this  City,  in  the  94th  Year  of  his  Age:  as  the 
Printer  of  this  Paper  liv'd  upwards  of  eight  Years 
Apprentice  to  him,  he  may  be  presumed  to  know 
something  of  Him.  He  came  to  America  upwards 
of  70  years  ago,  and  landed  at  the  Place  where 
Philadelphia  now  stand,  before  that  City  was  laid 
out,  or  a  House  built  there :  He  was  Printer  to 
this  Government  upwards  of  50  years;  and  was  a 
man  of  great  Sobriety  and  Industry  ;  a  real  Friend 
to  the  Poor  and  Needy ;  and  kind  and  affable  to 
all ;  but  acquiring  of  an  Estate  happened  not  to 
be  his  Faculty,  notwithstanding  his  being  here  at 
a  Time  when  others,  of  not  half  his  good  Quali- 
fications, amassed  considerable  Ones:  He  was  a 
True  Englishman  and  his  Complaisance  and  Af- 
fection to  his  Wives,  of  which  he  had  two,  was 
peculiarly  great ;  and  without  the  least  Exaggera- 
tion it  may  be  said  that  what  he  had  acquired 
with  the  first,  by  the  same  Carriage  was  lost  with 


94  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

the  second :  He  had  left  off  Business  for  several 
years  past,  and  being  quite  worn  out  with  old  Age 
and  Labour,  his  Lamp  of  Life  went  out  for  want 
of  Oil.*'  As  a  picture  of  a  good  man's  life,  ap- 
preciative but  never  seeking  to  flatter,  this  memo- 
rial will  take  rank  with  the  old  masters  of  litera- 
ture. The  inscription  on  the  tombstone  gives  the 
age  of  Wm.  Bradford  as  ninety-two  and  is  prob- 
ably correct,  though  his  obituary  notice  adds  a 
year.  In  fact  it  has  become  illegible  through 
fracture  of  the  stone,  but  where  it  drops  into 
poetry  it  can  readily  be  read  : 

"  Reader  reflect  how  soon  you'll  quit  this  Stage : 
You'll  find  but  fev/  attain  to  such  an  Age. 
Life's  full  of  pain,  Lo  there's  a  Place  of  Rest 
Prepare  to  meet  your  God  then  you  are  Blest." 

In  a  vault  on  the  south  side  of  the  church  and 
under  a  brownstone  slab  that  bears  his  name  and 
a  date,  rest  the  ashes  of  Hugh  Gaine,  who  for 
more  than  forty  years  was  a  printer  and  publisher 
in  this  city,  and  from  1 792  to  1 807  was  one  of  the 
vestrymen  of  the  parish.  Born  in  1726,  he  em- 
barked in  business  soon  after  reaching  his  major- 
ity, and  kept  a  book  store  in  Hanover  Square 
under  the  sign  of  the  Bible  and  Crown.     Here  in 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  95 

1752  he  established  the  **  New  York  Mercury" 
which  became  in  time  an  ardent  advocate  of  the 
rights  of  the  colonies.  As  delineated  by  the 
events  of  his  life,  Mr.  Gaine  seems  to  have  been 
an  amiable  sort  of  gentleman  whose  integrity  and 
morality  were  above  suspicion,  but  with  whom 
business  was  business,  for  during  the  occupation 
of  this  city  by  the  British  his  paper  maintained 
the  cause  of  the  king  and  turned  the  cold  shoul- 
der to  the  **  rebels."  After  the  evacuation  of  the 
English  forces  in  1783,  he  retired  to  New  Jersey 
for  a  while,  but,  on  petitioning  the  Legislature  of 
New  York  for  pardon,  he  was  allowed  to  remain 
here.  His  book  store  was  continued  under 
another  sign  than  that  of  the  Crown  and  he  lived 
to  become  a  popular  citizen  under  the  republic, 
passing  away  in  1 807  at  the  ripe  age  of  eighty- 
one. 

Another  printer  who  sleeps  in  the  southern  half 
of  the  graveyard  is  James  Oram.  The  white 
marble  headstone  which  marks  his  place  of  burial 
says  that  he  died  on  the  26th  of  October,  1826,  in 
the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age.  Another  ex- 
isting memorial  of  his  busy  life  is  the  "  New  York 
Price  Current  and  Shipping  List,"  which  he  es- 


96  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

tablished  in  1795,  and  which  is  still  published  and 
is  a  valuable  property.  When  the  completion  of 
the  Erie  Canal  was  celebrated  in  this  city  in  1825 
by  a  great  procession  in  which  all  the  local  crafts 
and  trades  were  represented,  the  printers  displayed 
in  their  ranks  a  platform  on  wheels  drawn  by  four 
horses  and  on  the  platform  was  placed  the  library 
chair  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  in  which  the  vener- 
able James  Oram,  noticeable  always  by  his  re- 
markable likeness  to  that  eminent  printer  and 
philosopher,  was  seated.  Before  the  next  year 
had  passed,  he  was  called  away  to  his  reward. 

In  one  of  the  vestry  rooms  of  Trinity  Church 
is  a  mural  tablet  which  bears  the  following  in- 
scription : 

In  memory  of 

Thomas    Swords 

Who  was  for  fifty  years  an  Eminent 

Publisher  and  Bookseller  in  this  city 

And   for   thirty-five   years   a   Vestryman 

of  this  ('hurch. 

Bom  in  Fort  George,  Saratoga  County,  N.  Y. 

Jany  5th  1764. 

Died  in  this  City 

June  27th  1843. 

This  tablet  has  a  peculiar  interest  for  me,  be- 
cause I  can  recall  so  vividly  the  old  church  book- 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  97 

Store  of  Stanford  &  Swords,  at  137  Broadway, 
which  was  not  only  the  gathering  place  of  the 
clergy,  but  was  frequented  by  all  literary  men  and 
antiquarians  because  it  was  the  oldest  estabHsh- 
ment  of  its  kind  in  the  city.  I  remember  dis- 
tinctly the  wrinkled,  pleasant  face  of  **  Uncle 
Tommy  "  Stanford,  as  he  was  wont  to  be  called 
by  his  intimates,  and  can  see  him  moving  about 
among  his  books  in  the  dress  coat  which  was  then 
habitually  worn  by  many  professional  and  busi- 
ness men,  and  his  invariable  habiliments  of  black. 
His  partner,  Mr.  James  R.  Swords,  was  a  man  of 
fine  appearance,  genial  manners  and  great  popu- 
larity. The  original  firm  of  T.  &  J.  Swords  was 
established  1787,  and  its  place  of  business  in 
Pearl  Street  was  known  familiarly  as  the  "  Church 
House  "  before  the  century  had  closed.  Thomas 
Swords,  the  senior  partner,  had  commenced  his 
business  career  in  the  employ  of  Hugh  Gaine. 
The  partnership  of  T.  &  J.  Swords  was  continued 
until  the  retirement  of  Mr.  James  Swords  in  1829, 
and  the  business  was  continued  under  the  firm 
name  of  Swords  &  Stanford,  and  subsequently 
Stanford  &  Swords  until  the  death  of  Mr.  James 
R.  Swords  in  1855,  soon  after  which  the  old  house 
7 


98  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

ceased  to  exist.  Mr.  Swords  was  but  thirty-nine 
years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  death,  but  such 
was  his  popularity  that  unusual  honors  were  paid 
him.  On  the  day  of  his  funeral  the  publishers 
and  booksellers  closed  their  places  of  business  and 
attended  the  funeral  at  Trinity  Chapel  in  a  body. 
This  has  never  been  done  since.  The  tide  of 
traffic  in  the  city  has  become  too  great  to  be 
stemmed  by  a  funeral. 

Thomas  Swords,  founder  of  the  famous  old  firm 
of  publishers,  was  a  son  of  Thomas  Swords  of 
Maryborough,  Town  of  Swords,  Ireland,  who 
came  to  this  country  as  an  officer  in  the  English 
army.  His  father  was  in  garrison  at  Fort  George 
when  he  was  born  there,  in  1764.  In  the  church- 
yard of  old  St.  Paul's,  in  this  city,  is  a  tombstone 
with  the  following  inscription  :  "  Near  this  spot 
were  deposited  the  remains  of  Lieutenant  Thomas 
Swords,  late  of  his  Brittanic  Majesty's  55  th  Regi- 
ment of  Foot,  who  departed  this  Hfe  on  the  i6th 
of  January,  1780,  in  the  42d  year  of  his  age; 
and  underneath  this  tomb  lies  all  that  was  mortal 
of  Mary  Swords,  relict  of  the  said  Lieutenant 
Thomas  Swords,  who,  on  the  15th  day  of  Septem- 
ber, 1798,  and  in  the  55  th  year  of  her  age,  fell  a 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  99 

victim  to  the  pestilence  which  then  desolated  the 
city  of  New  York.  As  a  small  token  of  respect 
and  to  commemorate  the  names  of  those  who 
deserved  and  commanded  the  esteem  of  all  who 
knew  them,  this  tomb  was  erected  Anno  Domini 
1799."  The  pestilence  which  then  swept  the 
little  city  was  the  yellow  fever  which  was  so  fatal 
that  "  nearly  one-half  of  those  cases  reported 
died,"  and  over  two  thousand  deaths  were  regis- 
tered in  a  few  weeks. 

I  have  seen  an  edition  of  Bishop  Hobart's 
"  Companion  to  the  Altar  "  bearing  the  imprima- 
tur of  P.  A.  Mesier  and  the  date  1823,  and  in  the 
southern  portion  of  Trinity  churchyard  is  the  burial 
vault  of  Abraham  and  Peter  Mesier,  built  far  back 
in  the  last  century.  The  family  was  famous  in 
the  annals  of  the  city  and  the  church,  doing  faith- 
ful service  in  the  municipal  as  well  as  the  parish 
corporation.  Its  members  were  wealthy,  too,  for 
they  lost  no  less  than  fifteen  houses  by  the  de- 
structive fire  of  August  1778.  There  was  an 
Abraham  Mesier  who  was  Assistant  Alderman  of 
the  Out  Ward  in  1698.  Peter  Mesier  served  as 
Alderman  of  the  West  Ward  from  1759  to  1762, 
and  his  son   Abraham   was  Assistant  Alderman 


lOO  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

from  1770  to  1773.  Then  came  Peter  A.  Mesier, 
merchant,  Alderman  of  the  First  Ward  from  1 807 
to  1 8 1 8  and  a  vestryman  of  Trinity  parish  at  the 
same  time.  David  Lydig,  founder  of  the  New 
York  family  of  that  name,  married  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  the  first  Peter  Mesier.  In  the  "  Diary 
of  Philip  Hone,"  under  date  of  December  14,  1847, 
I  find  the  following  entry :  *'  Another  old  friend 
is  gone.  Peter  A.  Mesier  died  suddenly,  on 
Wednesday  night,  in  the  seventy-fifth  year  of  his 
age.  I  attended  the  funeral  as  a  pall-bearer  this 
afternoon,  from  his  home.  No.  5 1  Dey  Street,  next 
door  to  the  one  in  which  I  was  married,  more  than 
forty-six  years  ago.  The  funeral  ceremony  was 
performed  in  Trinity  Church."  Mr.  Mesier  kept 
a  book  and  stationery  store,  first  on  Pearl  Street 
and  afterwards  on  Wall  Street,  opposite  the  Man- 
hattan Bank.  It  was  a  favorite  haunt  of  business 
men  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century,  because  it 
gave  a  literary  flavor  to  trade,  and  for  the  reason 
that  the  head  of  the  house  was  a  pillar  of  church, 
state  and  society. 

Turning  from  the  graves  of  these  honored  rep- 
resentatives of  the  art  preservative  of  all  arts — 
the  printer's  craft — I  pause  to  read  some  of  the 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  lOl 

verses  on  the  headstones  that  stand  closely  clus- 
tered together  in  the  older  portion  of  the  church- 
yard. There  is  a  fascination  about  graveyard 
poetry  which  can  neither  be  explained  nor  resisted. 
To-day,  I  am  in  the  mood  for  reading  the  expres- 
sions of  faith  in  their  resurrection  which  are 
graven  on  the  tombstones  of  these  sleepers. 
Sometimes  the  versification  is  rude,  buth  the  faith 
is  always  sublime.  Many  stones  bear  that  mag- 
nificent stanza,  beginning,  **  My  flesh  shall  slum- 
ber in  the  ground  "  ;  an  infant's  headstone  shows 
the  legend,  *'  Sleep,  lovely  babe,  and  take  your 
rest "  ;  an  old  man's  tomb  tells  that  '*  So  He  giveth 
His  beloved  sleep."  Everywhere  is  the  testimony 
that  death  is  but  a  sleep  to  be  followed  by  a  joy- 
ful resurrection.  It  is  testimony  in  stone  to  the 
doctrine  that  was  last  to  be  believed  and  first  to 
be  doubted  by  the  early  disciples  of  Christianity 
— the  resurrection  of  the  body.  I  had  just  risen 
from  reading  in  the  published  letter  of  a  renegade 
to  the  faith,  a  statement  that  the  majority  of  the 
clergy  of  the  church  had  ceased  to  hold  to  this 
old-fashioned  dogma,  and  that  it  had  grown  obso- 
lete among  the  faithful.  I  knew  that  this  was  a 
palpable  falsehood,  but  I  felt  that  I  needed  the  com- 


102  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

fort  of  these  testimonies  of  the  rock  and  the  added 
witness  of  bird  and  bud  and  blossom.  There 
would  be  for  me  no  power  in  The  Arm  that 
could  not  raise  my  flesh  from  the  dust.  The 
slumber  beneath  the  sod  would  lose  all  the  sweet- 
ness of  its  promise  of  rest,  but  for  the  certainty 
of  waking  and  looking  into  the  eyes  of  the  loved 
and  lost  and  being  welcomed  by  them.  And  to  be 
a  stranger  in  the  house  of  many  mansions,  chasing 
after  phantasmal  apparitions,  looking  in  vain  for 
familiar  faces  and  finding  only  the  airy  nothings 
of  agnosticism,  would  be  torment  even  to  the  most 
unselfish  of  souls.  God  be  thanked  that  every 
day,  with  every  service  in  the  old  church,  there 
comes  to  every  sleeper  in  the  old  churchyard  the 
undying  testimony  of  the  living  worshippers,  **  I 
l^elieve  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 


VIII. 

The  graves  of  the  unknown  dead  in  the  upper 
half  of  Trinity  churchyard  are  more  numerous 
than  the  tombs  of  those  whose  names  are  regis- 
tered in  the  burial  records.  The  greater  part  of 
this  section  was  a  city  cemetery  for  twenty  years 
before  the  first  church  building  was  erected,  and  I 
have  heard  that  there  is  a  tombstone  there  which 
bears  an  inscription  in  Dutch  to  the  memory  of  a 
maiden  from  Holland,  who  died  in  1639,  but  I 
have  never  been  able  to  find  it.  I  had  the  story 
from  an  antiquarian  who  insisted  that  the  date  of 
the  inscription  was  given  in  the  Dutch  language 
and  not  in  numerals  and  therefore  it  had  escaped 
my  eye.  The  grave  may  be  there,  though  the 
old  city  charter,  granted  by  Governor  Dougan  in 
the  time  of  James  the  Second,  and  bearing  date  of 
1686,  speaks  of  "the  new  burial  place  without 
the  gate  of  the  city."  When  the  young  Dutch 
maiden  passed  away.  New  York  was  a  little  Dorp, 
or  village  whose  houses  clustered  around  that  part 
of  the  city  which  is  now  called  Coentie's  Slip  and 
the  Bowling  Green.  It  was  a  long  and  dreary 
road  by  which  they  carried  the  dead  girl's  body 

103 


164      Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

from  her  home  beside  the  river  to  the  green  hill 
far  away  from  the  little  settlement. 

There  are  other  unknown  graves  in  this  portion 
of  the  churchyard  which  no  good  citizen  can  con- 
template without  a  thrill  of  pride,  and  which  the 
corporation  of  old  Trinity  has  honored  fitly  by 
the  erection  of  the  only  monumental  pile  to  be 
found  in  the  enclosure.  This  costly  structure 
faces  Pine  Street  and  calls  to  the  hurrying  multitudes 
who  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  liberty,  to  pause  and 
remember  the  patriot  dead  who  gave  their  lives 
that  the  land  might  be  free.  In  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  the  tall  gothic  shaft  lie  in  un- 
marked graves  a  little  army  of  soldiers  of  the 
Revolution.  They  were  brought  here  for  burial 
from  the  loathsome  cells  of  the  Provost  Jail  in  the 
Fields — now  the  Hall  of  Records  in  the  City  Hall 
Park — from  the  sugar  houses  in  which  they  were 
closely  packed  and  left  to  die  of  starvation  and 
disease,  and  from  the  old  Huguenot  Church  in 
Pine  Street  which  had  been  turned  into  a  hospital. 
Trinity  Church  had  been  burned  down  in  Septem- 
ber, 1776,  when  the  British  army  under  Lord 
Howe  occupied  the  city,  and  the  flames  at  the 
same  time  swept  the  entire  west  side  of  Broadway 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.       105 

as  far  as  St.  Paul's  Chapel.  The  graveyard  be- 
came a  scene  of  desolation  and  so  continued  for 
the  seven  long  years  of  captivity.  No  one  was 
interred  there  except  the  dead  American  prison- 
ers and  the  interments  usually  took  place  at  night, 
without  funeral  ceremonies,  and  with  cruel  haste. 
Philip  Freneau,  the  spirited  poet  of  the  patriot 
cause,  who  was  for  some  time  a  captive  in  the 
prison-ship  Scorpion^  moored  in  the  Hudson 
within  sight  of  the  graveyard,  wrote  that  **  suc- 
cessive funerals  gloomed  each  dismal  day  "  of  his 
captivity  and  added: 

"  By  feeble  hands  their  shallow  graves  were  made; 
No  stone  meraorial  o'er  their  corpses  laid  ; 
In  barren  sands  and  far  from  home  they  lie, 
No  friend  to  shed  a  tear  when  passing  by." 

Among  the  builders  of  vaults  in  Trinity  church- 
yard, who  were  nearly  always  persons  of  distinc- 
tion and  wealth  in  the  city  or  colony,  there  are 
some  names  which  may  almost  be  classed  with 
the  unknown.  The  name  has  been  lost  to  the  re- 
membrance of  the  living  through  the  breaking  up 
of  the  family,  and  death  or  removal  have  de- 
stroyed the  historical  link  between  the  past  and 


I06  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

the  present.  A  brown-stone  slab  hidden  in  the 
grass  to  the  south  of  the  church  building,  bears 
the  legend,  "  Apthorpe  Family  Vault,  1801,"  yet 
the  name  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  city  directory. 
To  the  leaders  of  modern  society  it  has  no  sig- 
nificance, and  yet  there  was  a  time  when  for  a 
long  period  the  family  held  its  own  with  the 
proudest  of  the  colonial  aristocracy.  Until  within 
a  few  months  there  stood  on  the  westerly  side  of 
Ninth  Avenue,  between  91st  and  g2d  Streets,  a 
house  famous  in  the  annals  of  the  city  and  the 
history  of  this  country  and  known  as  the  Ap- 
thorpe  Mansion.  It  was  stately  and  beautiful  in 
its  architecture,  and  its  recessed  portico,  high 
arched  door  flanked  by  Corinthian  columns,  its 
oaken  beams  and  carved  panels  were  the  admira- 
tion of  the  town  for  many  a  year.  It  was  built 
by  Charles  Ward  Apthorpe,  one  of  the  counsellors 
of  the  royal  Governor  Tyron,  in  1767,  and  was 
furnished  with  regal  splendor.  Locusts,  pines  and 
elms  shaded  the  house  and  diversified  the  land- 
scape of  its  beautiful  park  of  two  hundred  acres. 
A  scholar,  a  courtly  gentleman  and  a  born  diplo- 
matist as  well,  Apthorpe  kept  free  from  political 
entanglements  during  the  Revolution  and  was  per- 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  I07 

mitted  to  retain  his  property  afterwards.  In  the 
winter  of  1789  the  beauty,  wealth  and  fashion  of 
the  capital  of  the  new  republic,  together  with  the 
most  distinguished  representatives  of  the  govern- 
ment, were  gathered  at  the  house  to  witness  the 
marriage  of  Mr.  Apthorpe's  beautiful  daughter 
Maria  to  Dr.  Hugh  Williamson,  member  of  Con- 
gress from  North  Carolina.  Charles  Ward  Ap- 
thorpe  became  afterwards  a  vestryman  of  Trinity 
parish,  died  in  1797  and  was  buried  in  Trinity 
churchyard,  but  the  Williamsons  continued  to  live 
in  the  beautiful  old  house  for  a  generation  after- 
wards, and  later  it  passed  into  the  hands  of 
strangers. 

That  there  was  a  skeleton  in  the  house  of  the 
proud  Apthorpes  is  shown  by  the  queer  will  made 
in  1809  by  Mistress  Grizzel,  a  daughter  of  the 
royal  counsellor,  which  is  on  file  in  the  surrogate's 
office.  I  speak  of  it  here  to  show  how  utterly 
small  seem  all  earthly  quarrels  when  we  stand  in 
the  presence  of  the  dust  that  lived  and  loved  and 
hated  once  but  is  now  only  a  handful  of  faded  im- 
potence. The  poor  lady  thought  she  had  a  griev- 
ance and  she  bequeathed  her  forgiveness  to  her 
"  enemies  "  whose  **  malice  "  she  deplored.     Yet 


loS  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

she  had  a  fountain  of  unfailing  kindness  in  her  heart 
which  might  have  made  the  desert  of  her  Hfe  to 
blossom  as  the  rose  if  she  had  let  it  have  full 
play.  If  man  was  her  enemy  the  beast  of  the 
field  was  her  friend  and  she  remembered  them 
even  in  death.  The  will  says  :  "  I  leave  a  legacy 
for  the  support  of  my  favorite  cat  and  the  two 
little  dogs  intrusted  to  the  care  of  my  unfortunate, 
kind  sister,  Ann  Apthorpe ;  for  this  purpose,  I 
particularly  desire,  if  they  are  my  survivors,  that 
seven  dollars  may  be  annually  paid  to  some  de- 
cent person  who  will  keep  them  and  treat  them 
kindly.  To  those  who  have  no  regard  for  the 
animal  creation,  this  donation  may  be  deemed  an 
absurd  peculiarity,  but  my  care  of  the  dogs  I  con- 
sider the  last  tribute  of  affection  that  I  can  pay  to 
the  memory  of  a  highly  valued  sister,  and  the 
playful  though  mute  affection  of  my  cat  has  so 
often  soothed  and  cheered  my  solitary  hours  that 
it  is  grateful  to  my  feelings  to  believe  that  my  only 
remaining  friend  and  sister  will  not  consider  this 
request  beneath  her  attention."  The  poor  lady 
and  her  sister  sleep  in  the  family  vault  and  on  its 
shelves  repose  also  the  ashes  of  some  of  those 
with  whom  she  was. at  war.     In  the  full-orbed 


WALKS   IN    OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  lOQ 

glory  of  the  sun  of  the  resurrection  the  mists  of 
prejudice  will  be  found  to  have  vanished  and  peace 
will  spread  her  white  wings  over  the  reunited  fam- 
ily as  they  troop  up  joyously  to  the  throne  of 
judgment. 

At  the  distance  of  less  than  a  stone's  throw 
from  the  tomb  of  Alexander  Hamilton  is  a  slab  of 
sandstone,  lying  prone  upon  the  earth,  and  bear- 
ing the  inscription,  "  Matthew  L.  Davis'  Sepul- 
chre, i8i8."  The  graveyard  makes  strange  meet- 
ings, for  the  man  who  sleeps  in  the  sepulchre  was 
the  friend  and  biographer  of  Aaron  Burr,  the 
slayer  of  Hamilton.  As  the  venerable  Grant 
Thorburn  pathetically  wrote  in  a  letter,  "  Matthew 
L.  Davis  was  the  last  friend  that  Aaron  Burr  pos- 
sessed on  earth."  In  many  respects  he  was  a  re- 
markable man  and  though  almost  forgotten  now 
he  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  figures  in  the 
troublous  political  era  in  which  Hamilton,  Burr 
and  De  Witt  Clinton  were  the  leaders.  He  was  a 
merchant,  doing  business  as  an  auctioneer  in  lower 
Pearl  Street  at  first  and  afterwards  living  and  con- 
ducting extensive  commercial  operations  at  49 
Stone  Street.  On  the  July  afternoon  that  wit- 
nessed   the    shooting    of    Hamilton,  Matthew  L. 


no  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

Davis  accompanied  Burr  in  the  row  boat  which 
carried  him  to  Weehawken,  and  at  the  time  of 
the  exchange  of  shots  he  stood  in  company  with 
Dr.  Hosack  under  the  bluff  at  the  river  bank, 
awaiting  the  outcome  of  the  duel.  Afterwards 
he  was  imprisoned  for  some  days  by  order  of  the 
coroner  for  refusing  to  testify  at  the  inquest. 
His  subsequent  career  was  honorable  and  suc- 
cessful and  he  was  honored  in  his  death,  as  he 
had  been  in  life,  by  the  men  of  his  generation. 
Now,  under  the  shadow  of  the  cross  and  in  the 
quiet  of  the  same  churchyard,  with  their  old 
antagonisms  all  forgotten,  Hamilton  and  Davis 
take  their  rest  after  the  tossings  of  life's  fitful 
fever. 

Close  by  the  south  porch  of  the  church  is  a 
stone  which  bears  the  simple  inscription  "  Wy- 
nant  Van  Zandt "  and  covers  the  vault  of  the 
family  bearing  that  name.  Theirs  has  been  a 
notable  name  in  the  annals  of  the  city  and 
church.  There  was  a  Wynant  Van  Zandt  who 
was  Assistant  Alderman  of  the  Dock  Ward  in 
1788  and  Alderman  from  1789  to  1794;  Wy- 
nant Van  Zandt,  Jr.,  was  Alderman  of  the  First 
Ward  from    1802    to    1806,  and  Peter  Pra  Van 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  Ill 

Zandt  was  Alderman  of  the  Third  Ward  from 
1 79 1  to  1793,  and  member  of  Assembly  from 
1777  to  1784.  Johannes  Van  Zandt,  first  of  the 
name  in  New  Amsterdam,  emigrated  from  the 
city  of  Anheim,  Holland,  in  1682.  His  son, 
Wynant,  was  born  in  New  York  in  1683  and 
died  in  1763.  His  home  in  Horse  aud  Cart 
Lane,  now  WiUiam  Street,  was  a  model  of  luxury 
and  refinement  in  its  day.  Jacobus,  the  oldest 
son  of  Wynant  Van  Zandt,  was  imbued  with  the 
old  Dutch  spirit  of  resistance  to  tyranny  and 
became  a  member  of  the  first  Provincial  Con- 
gress of  New  York  and  was  afterwards  surgeon 
in  the  army  of  Washington  at  Valley  Forge  and 
the  New  Jersey  campaign  that  opened  with  the 
victory  at  Trenton.  His  beautiful  daughter  Cath- 
arine was  the  belle  of  the  inauguration  ball  of 
President  Washington  in  this  city  and  married 
James  Hower  Maxwell,  the  banker.  Wynant  Van 
Zandt,  second  of  the  name,  was  born  in  New  York 
in  1730,  and  died  in  18 14.  The  third  Wynant, 
son  of  the  second  of  that  name  was  born  here  in 
1767  and  died  in  1 831,  and  the  name  descended 
to  his  grandson.  All  men  of  worth  in  their  gen- 
erations, as  well  as  wealth,  they  needed  no  other 


112  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

eulogy  than  the  carving  of  their  name  upon  the 
stone  door  of  their  last  home  upon  earth. 

Life  has  queer  changes  in  store  for  men  who 
mark  out  for  themselves  the  line  they  propose  to 
pursue  and  who  mourn  in  youth  a  lost  opportunity 
to  pursue  the  profession  of  their  choice.  It  is  told 
of  George  Washington  that  he  earnestly  desired, 
while  yet  a  boy,  to  obtain  a  commission  as  mid- 
shipman in  the  navy  of  King  George,  and  only 
gave  up  his  wish  at  the  earnest  entreaties  of  his 
mother.  Had  he  possessed  less  filial  affection  he 
would  have  missed  the  high  honor  he  afterwards 
attained  as  "  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  country- 
men." 

In  the  southwest  corner  of  Trinity  churchyard 
is  a  plain  slab  inscribed  with  the  name  of  John  J. 
Morgan.  Born  in  the  city  of  New  York,  of  Welsh 
parentage,  he  was  commissioned  a  midshipman  in 
the  royal  navy,  while  yet  a  mere  boy,  and  set  out 
to  win  his  laurels  on  the  sea.  A  storm  disabled 
the  ship  of  war  and  she  was  captured  by  an 
American  privateer  that  brought  the  vessel  and 
her  crew  into  the  harbor  of  Boston.  Young  Mor- 
gan was  among  the  captured  officers,  but  after  a 
while  was  released  and  sent  to  New  York.     Here 


WALKS    IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  II3 

he  seems  to  have  become  sick  of  the  sea  and  of 
the  cause  in  which  he  had  embarked.  Remaining 
in  the  city  after  the  departure  of  the  British  troops, 
he  turned  his  attention  to  the  legal  profession  and 
entered  the  law  office  of  General  Morgan  Lewis, 
a  soldier  of  the  Revolution  and  afterwards  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State.  After  being  admitted  to  the 
bar,  he  married  Catharine  Warne,  a  niece  of  the 
gallant  old  patriot,  Marinus  Willett,  and  at  once 
took  his  place  among  the  leading  men  of  the 
young  republic.  Honors  flowed  in  upon  him. 
He  was  elected  Member  of  Assembly,  served  two 
terms  as  Representative  in  Congress  and  for  a 
short  time  was  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York. 
Mr.  Morgan  was  also  for  many  years  a  vestryman 
of  Trinity  Church,  and  during  his  long  and  useful 
life  was  identified  with  many  of  the  public  enter- 
prises of  the  community.  In  1859  he  fell  asleep, 
at  the  ripe  age  of  four-score  and  ten  years,  with 
the  testimony  of  a  good  conscience  and  in  full 
communion  with  the  church.  His  niece  and 
adopted  daughter  married  Major- General  John  A. 
Dix,  U.  S.  A.,  father  of  the  present  Rector  of 
Trinity  Church. 

In  my  walk  I    turn   my  way,  as   I  leave  the 
8 


114  WALKS   IN    OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

churchyard,  from  the  names  known  to  history  and 
fame  to  the  records  of  humbler  sleepers  and 
recognize  with  a  thrill  of  sympathy  the  love  that 
reared  their  monumental  stones.  I  stop  to  read 
the  words  that  tell  of  the  fate  of  the  daughter  of 
Richard  Thorne,  and  though  he  has  long  since 
gone  to  the  land  in  which  there  are  no  tears  and 
no  graves,  I  feel  an  infinite  pity  for  the  father  who 
was  bereaved  of  his  child  and  who  appealed  to 
the  sympathy  of  the  world  in  these  lines  of  limp- 
ing rhyme : 


"  Three  days'  fever  snatched  her  breath, 
And  bowed  her  to  triumphant  death. 
When  scarce  twelve  years  had  crowned  her  head, 
Behold  in  dust  her  peaceful  bed." 


A  few  paces  distant  is  the  last,  grass- grown, 
cradle  of  a  babe.  An  inscription  on  an  old  and 
decaying  stone  sets  forth  that  this  is  the  grave  of 
"  John,  son  of  Arthur  and  Mary  Darley.  Died, 
1797,  aged  7  months.**  Was  the  little  one  the 
first  born  of  the  sorrowing  couple  ?  Was  he  their 
only  child  ?  There  is  nothing  to  make  answer, 
but  the  stone  reared  over  the  baby's  dust  is  a  mute 
witness  to  the  tenderness  with  which  he  must  have 


WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS.  II5 

been  loved.     Beneath  the  name  and  record  of  the 
infant  is  the  inscription  : 

*'  O  happy  probationer !     Accepted 
Without  being  exercised." 

This  is  the  cry  of  faith  triumphant  over  the 
pang  of  bereavement.  Its  pecuHar  phrasing  leads 
one  to  believe  that  the  parents  were  of  the  early 
Methodists  who  kept  their  allegiance  to  the 
Church  of  England,  while  admiring  the  zeal  of 
the  pioneer  preachers  of  the  new  "  methods  "  in 
religion.  It  is  the  language  of  Wesley  and  Whit- 
field and  Embury,  who  buried  some  of  their  dead 
here  and  who  held  that  the  old  church  of  Cranmer 
and  Hooper  and  Laud  was  the  bulwark  of  the 
ancient  and  apostolic  faith.  But  apart  from  these 
questions,  the  quaint  inscription  over  the  baby's 
dust  is  simply  beautiful.  There  is  no  room  for 
doubt.  The  little  one  is  accepted,  and  grief  can 
become  even  joy  because  the  brief  probation 
brought  neither  sin  nor  sorrow  in  its  train.  So  I 
go  on  my  way  with  the  words  "  I  am  the  good 
shepherd  "  following  my  steps  and  looking  up 
through  the  clear  sunlight  of  faith  I  see  Him  ten- 
derly bearing  in  His  bosom  this  little  lamb  of  the 
fold. 


IX. 

It  has  occurred  to  my  mind  more  than  once 
that  the  merchants  of  New  York  as  a  rule  take 
too  little  pride  in  their  profession.  Especially 
does  this  thought  recur  when  I  tread  the  paths 
of  this  ancient  churchyard  and  read  on  one 
stone  after  another  the  names  of  men  whose 
genius  in  business  has  enriched  the  city  and 
whose  patriotism  has  been  a  bulwark  of  the  re- 
public. Statues  in  bronze  have  been  erected  in 
our  streets  to  the  memory  of  Washington  and 
Lafayette,  who  drew  their  swords  in  the  cause 
of  freedom,  and  why  should  not  like  honor  be 
paid  to  Francis  Lewis  and  Philip  Livingston,  the 
two  great  New  York  merchants  who  hazarded 
life  and  all  they  had  when  they  signed  their 
names  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ?  Philip 
Livingston  died  in  harness  and  is  buried  in  the 
graveyard  of  the  little  city  of  York,  Pennsylvania, 
when  the  fugitive  Congress  was  there  in  session^ 
Francis  Lewis  saw  his  home  destroyed  and  his 
family  scattered  by  foreign  invaders,  and  after 
sacrificing  his  property  on  his  country's  altar,  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers  in  a  ripe  old  age  and  lies 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  li; 

buried  in  Trinity  churchyard,  where  also  sleeps 
his  illustrious  son,  Governor  Morgan  Lewis,  sol- 
dier of  the  Revolution. 

It  was  in  1735,  when  New  York  was  a  little  city 
of  nine  thousand  inhabitants,  that  Francis  Lewis, 
a  native  of  Wales,  whose  father  was  then  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  London,  came  to  this  city 
to  engage  in  trade.  Fortune  smiled  upon  him 
from  the  start  and  in  twenty  years  his  ships  were 
known  in  all  seas.  At  the  time  of  the  French  war 
of  1755  he  was  at  Oswego  when  it  was  surren- 
dered to  General  Montcalm  and  with  the  rest  of 
the  prisoners  was  turned  over  to  the  Indian  allies 
of  France.  Every  prisoner  was  killed  in  cold 
blood  except  Francis  Lewis  and  tradition  relates 
that  his  life  was  spared  because  he  could  talk  with 
them,  owing  to  the  resemblance  of  their  language 
to  the  ancient  Welsh  dialect,  which  they  could  un- 
derstand !  There  is  a  legend  that  a  Welsh  prince 
once  settled  in  the  Western  world  and  the  great 
Southey  took  it  as  the  text  for  his  **Madoc." 
Sent  as  a  prisoner  to  France  he  was  soon  ex- 
changed, returned  to  his  home  in  New  York  and 
shortly  afterwards  entered  with  heart  and  soul 
into  the  cause  of  the  colonies.     As  early  as  1 765 


Il8  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

he  was  a  member  of  the  Provisional  Congress 
which  opposed  the  Stamp  Act  and  in  1775  was 
elected  to  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadel- 
phia, where  in  1776  he  signed  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  on  behalf  of  the  colony  of  New 
York.  In  that  year  his  house  at  Whitestone,  on 
Long  Island,  was  plundered  by  the  British,  his 
valuable  library  destroyed  and  his  wife  made  pris- 
oner, kept  captive  for  several  months  and  so  rig- 
orously treated  that  she  soon  after  died.  Gener- 
ous as  well  as  patriotic,  Francis  Lewis  sacrificed 
the  bulk  of  a  large  property  to  the  cause  of  his 
country,  and  after  independence  was  gained  lived 
quietly  at  his  home  in  Cortlandt  Street,  resting 
after  his  labors.  Though  he  was  then  seventy 
years  of  age,  he  accepted  the  position  of  vestryman 
of  Trinity  Church  and  held  it  for  several  years. 
Twenty  years  later  the  end  came  and  on  the  30th 
of  December,  1803,  he  died,  at  the  age  of  ninety 
and  was  buried  in  Trinity  churchyard. 

There  was  one  cross  in  the  life  of  this  "  grand 
old  man  "  which  was  particularly  hard  to  bear. 
His  daughter  Ann,  whom  he  dearly  loved,  was 
wooed  by  a  British  naval  officer.  Captain  Robinson, 
who  had  won  her  heart.     The  father  would  not 


WALKS   IN   OtJR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 19 

listen  to  the  lovers  and  they  were  married  in  secret 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Inglis,  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
who  left  the  city  with  the  British  forces,  and  was 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Nova  Scotia.  One  of  the 
daughters  of  this  couple  married  Bishop  Sumner 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  another 
wedded  Bishop  Wilson  of  Calcutta.  So  time 
made  some  amends  in  the  direction  of  the  Church 
if  not  the  State,  for  this  seeming  lapse  from  patrio- 
tism. The  sons  of  Francis  Lewis,  on  the  other 
hand,  went  heart  and  soul  with  their  father  in  the 
devotion  to  the  land  in  which  they  were  born. 
Francis,  the  eldest,  was  a  man  of  influence,  grew 
rapidly  rich  and  married  a  sister  of  Daniel  Ludlow, 
one  of  the  most  eminent  merchants  of  New  York 
in  the  last  century.  He  died  in  18 14  at  the  age 
of  seventy-three  and  is  interred  with  his  father. 
One  of  the  daughters  married  Samuel  G.  Ogden, 
who  was  a  distinguished  merchant  of  this  city  at 
the  opening  of  the  present  century. 

Even  more  famous  than  his  illustrious  father 
was  Morgan  Lewis,  second  son  of  the  old  Signer. 
Taking  up  arms  at  the  Revolutionary  Struggle, 
he  distinguished  himself  at  Stillwater  where  he 
was   the    officer   who  received   the   surrender  of 


!50  WALkS   IN    OUR   CttURCHYARDS. 

Burgoyne's  troops,  and  rose  to  the  command  of  a 
regiment  In  the  war  of  1812  he  was  a  Major- 
General,  did  good  service  at  the  Niagara  frontier 
and  had  charge  of  the  defenses  of  New  York. 
In  looking  up  his  military  record  I  was  surprised 
to  find  that  in  November,  1775,  Morgan  Lewis 
was  appointed  first  Major  of  the  Second  Regiment, 
of  which  John  Jay  was  Colonel.  I  had  never 
heard  of  the  distinguished  jurist  as  a  soldier  and 
I  find  that  other  important  duties  intervened  and 
that  he  did  not  accept  the  command.  Equally 
competent  in  the  forum  and  the  field,  Morgan 
Lewis  served  as  Attorney- General  and  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  State,  and 
was  elected  Governor  and  afterwards  United 
States  Senator.  In  1779  he  married  Gertrude, 
daughter  of  Chancellor  Livingston.  Their  only 
child,  a  daughter,  became  the  wife  of  Maturin 
Livingston.  For  forty  years  or  more  the  Gov- 
ernor occupied  a  spacious  double  mansion  at  the 
corner  of  Church  and  Leonard  Streets,  where  he 
dispensed  a  patriarchal  hospitality.  From  this 
house  he  was  buried  on  April  11,  1844.  I  re- 
call the  occasion.  As  Governor  Lewis  was  Presi- 
dent-General of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati  and 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  121 

Grand  Master  of  Masons,  there  was  to  be  a  great 
display,  and  every  schoolboy  in  town — of  whom 
I  was  one — was  anxious  to  see  it,  and  I  think 
we  were  all  there.  The  military,  the  veterans 
of  the  Cincinnati,  the  martial  music  and  the  para- 
phernalia of  the  Free  Masons,  made  an  imposing 
and  stately  procession.  The  streets  were  thronged 
with  people  on  the  whole  line  of  march,  from 
the  house  on  Leonard  Street  to  St.  Paul's  Church 
where  the  funeral  services  were  held — Trinity 
Church  being  then  in  process  of  rebuilding.  I 
remember  that  I  had  eyes  only  for  one  man, 
the  venerable  Major  Pophani,  last  survivor  of  the 
original  members  of  the  Cincinnati,  whom  George 
Washington  had  commissioned,  who  was  hale 
and  hearty  at  ninety-two  and  looked  as  if  he 
might  round  the  century.  There  had  been  talk 
of  this  veteran  at  my  home  and  with  the  old 
Revolutionary  colonel  lying  in  his  coffin,  the 
Major  who  survived  him  became  to  my  eyes 
almost  coeval  with  the  Pharaohs,  and  I  watched 
him  and  wondered  what  thoughts  were  throb- 
bing under  his  fur-white  hairs  and  what  mem- 
ories of  other  days  were  tugging  at  his  heart. 
In  the  robing-room    of  Trinity  Church  there 


122  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

is  a  mural  tablet  which   bears   the   following  in- 
scription : 

Sacred 

To  the  Memory  of 

Thomas  Ludlow  Ogden, 

For  38  Years  Vestryman  of  this  Parish 

And  at  the  time  of  his  death 

Senior  Warden. 

Bom  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  Dec.  12th,  1773. 
Died  in  the  City  of  New  York,  Dec.  17  th,  1844. 


Of  sound  judgment  and  untiring  industry, 
The  one  improved  by  diligent  cultivation, 
The  other  quickened  by  religious  principles ; 
His  long  life  was  one  of  usefulness  and  duty. 
Born  and  nurtured  in  the  bosom  of  the  Chiurch 
He  gave  back  to  her  with  filial  gratitude 
His  best  powers,  his  most  valued  time, 

His  dearest  affections : 

In  all  her  institutions 
Stood  foremost  in  both  counsel  and  action. 
Christian  obedience  mark'd  his  course. 
Christian  peace  crowned  his  end 

In  a  Christian  hope. 

An  English  ancestor  of  the  subject  of  this 
eulogy  came  to  this  country  more  than  two 
hundred  years  ago,  and  made  their  home  on  Long 
Island.  The  family  were  Independents  or  Con- 
gregationalists    in  religion,   at    first,    but  finding 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1^3 

that  "  the  little  finger  of  Puritanism  is  stronger 
than  the  loins  of  prelacy  "  in  the  matter  of  sec- 
tarian oppression  and  interference  with  freedom  of 
conscience,  they  gave  in  their  allegiance  to  the 
Church  of  England  and  transferred  the  glebe  lands 
of  the  Hempstead  meeting-house  to  the  Episco- 
pal church  of  that  place.  Thomas  Ludlow  Ogden 
who  so  faithfully  served  the  church  of  his  fathers* 
adoption,  was  the  third  son  of  Abraham  Ogden 
and  Sarah  Francis  Ludlow,  and  was  a  graduate  of 
Columbia  College  and  a  student  in  the  law  office 
of  Richard  Harison,  vestryman  and  sometime 
Comptroller  of  Trinity  Parish.  Abraham  Ogden, 
his  father,  was  a  distinguished  lawyer  in  whose 
office  at  Morristown  were  educated  many  eminent 
men,  such  as  Richard  Stockton,  Josiah  Ogden 
Hoffinan,  Attorney- General  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  Martin  Hoffinan,  the  great  political 
leader.  The  last  two  were  nephews  of  Mr.  Ogden 
whose  sister  had  married  Nicholas  Hoffinan.  Two 
of  the  sons  of  Abraham  Ogden  emigrated  to  the 
regions  of  the  St.  Lawrence  where  they  did  the 
work  of  pioneers  and  gave  their  family  name  to 
the  city  of  Ogdensburg.  Thomas  L.  Ogden  re- 
mained in  New  York,  devoted  himself  to  his  pro- 


1^4         WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

fession  and  accumulated  a  fortune  by  it.  He  held 
many  important  trusts,  and  for  years  was  the  law 
officer  of  the  corporation  of  Trinity  Church,  as 
well  as  clerk  and  vestryman  for  thirty- five  years 
and  Senior  Warden  for  three  years  more.  It 
seems  a  pity  that  so  useful  a  life  could  not  have 
been  continued  a  few  months  longer,  for  Mr.  Og- 
den  was  chairman  of  the  Building  Committee  of 
the  present  church  edifice  which  was  completed  less 
than  seventeen  months  after  his  decease.  His  book 
of  minutes  of  the  meetings  of  this  committee  show 
how  deep  was  his  interest  in  the  work  of  construc- 
tion. But  God  had  something  better  in  store  for  him 
and  when  we  who  survive  were  marching  up  the 
aisle  of  the  new  Trinity  Church  on  the  bright  May 
morning  in  1846  that  saw  the  beautiful  edifice 
consecrated,  he  was  walking  through  the  streets  of 
the  city  whose  walls  are  of  jasper  and  whose 
foundations  are  garnished  with  all  manner  of 
precious  stones. 

The  Rector,  Wardens  and  Vestry  of  Trinity 
Church  have  made  and  left  their  mark  on  the 
streets  of  New  York,  not  alone  in  such  titles  as 
Rector,  Church  and  Vestry  Streets  and  St.  John's 
Lane,  but  in  Vesey,  Barclay  and  Beach   Streets 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 25 

which  were  named  after  old-time  ministers  of  the 
parish  and  in  more  than  a  score  of  thoroughfares 
which  bear  the  names  of  prominent  members  of 
the  corporation.  Among  those  last  are  Murray, 
Warren,  Chambers,  Reade,  Jay,  Harison,  North 
Moore,  Beach,  Laight,  Desbrosses,  Vandam,  Watts, 
Charlton,  King,  Hamersley,  Clarkson,  Le  Roy, 
Morton,  Barrow  and  others.  These  names,  fa- 
miliar to  my  ears  for  half  a  century,  come  back 
to  me  now  as  I  stand  by  the  family  vault  that 
bears  the  name  of  Reade  inscribed  upon  it.  To 
modern  New  York  the  stone  has  not  much  signifi- 
cance, but  there  was  a  time  when  there  was  but 
one  official  in  the  colonial  province  more  powerful 
than  "  the  Honorable  Joseph  Reade,  of  this  city, 
one  of  His  Majesty's  council  for  this  Province." 
A  century  and  a  half  ago,  he  was  a  wealthy  mer- 
chant of  New  York  and  a  recognized  leader  in 
social  and  ecclesiastical  matters.  He  was  elevated 
to  the  position  of  member  of  the  Provincial  Coun- 
cil in  1764  and  died  in  1771,  leaving  a  daughter 
who  had  been  married  in  1748  to  James,  son  of 
Abraham  De  Peyster. 

It  is  in  its  connection   with  Trinity  parish  that 
the  name  of  Reade  is  especially  interesting.     The 


126  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

first  recorded  meeting  of  the  managers  and  mem- 
bers of  Trinity  Church  was  held  on  the  28th  of 
June,  1697,  ^^^  ^t  this  meeting  Lawrence  Reade 
was  present.  His  official  connection  with  the  par- 
ish lasted  from  1697  ^^  1709.  but  before  he  died 
he  saw  his  son  Joseph  elected  a  member  of  the 
vestry.  While  still  a  comparatively  young  man, 
Joseph  Reade  was  elected  a  warden  of  the  church 
and  he  filled  the  office  for  almost  half  a  century 
— from  April,  1721,  to  April,  1770.  At  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Rector,  Church-Wardens  and  Vestry- 
men of  Trinity  Church,  held  May  30,  1770,  the 
resignation  of  Mr.  Reade,  based  on  the  plea  that 
"  his  age  did  not  permit  him  to  go  through  the 
business  with  that  ease  and  satisfaction  he  could 
wish,"  was  accepted  and  unanimous  resolutions  of 
thanks  for  his  long  and  faithful  services  were  or- 
dered sent  to  him  by  the  hands  of  the  Rector,  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Auchmuty,  D.D.  In  less  than  a  year 
the  good  old  man,  whose  name  and  deeds  had 
been  fragrant  as  incense  in  the  church,  had  gone 
to  his  reward.  The  "  New  York  Journal "  or 
"  General  Advertiser"  of  March  7,  1771,  spoke  of 
him  as  follows :  "  On  Saturday  last  died  the  Hon- 
orable Joseph   Reade,  of  this  city,  one  of   His 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  12/ 

Majesty's  Council  for  the  Province,  after  a  very 
short  indisposition,  and  on  the  Tuesday  following, 
his  corpse  being  preceded  by  the  children  of  the 
Charity  School  here  (near  Trinity  School)  of  which 
he  was  one  of  the  principal  promoters,  and  at- 
tended by  the  principal  gentlemen  of  the  city, 
was  deposited  in  the  family  vault  in  Trinity 
churchyard.  Of  this  gentleman  it  may  be  truly 
said  that  his  life  and  manners  were  exemplary. 
As  a  merchant  he  was  eminently  upright,  punc- 
tual to  all  his  business  and  transaction ;  as  a 
Christian  he  entertained  just  sentiments  of  the 
truths  and  grace  of  the  Gospel,  and  ziealously  and 
industriously  endeavored  to  regulate  his  life  and 
conduct  according  to  its  precepts.  In  him,  added 
to  an  unusual  amiableness  and  evenness  of  tem- 
per were  happily  united  all  the  endearing  qualifica- 
tions of  a  most  affectionate,  obliging  husband, 
father  and  kind  master.  He  was  affable,  friendly 
and  virtuous."  Somewhat  quaint  is  the  language 
of  this  obituary,  but  what  more  could  you  have 
in  the  way  of  ripened  manhood.  "  Man  has  made 
him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,"  says  Holy 
Writ,  and  once  in  a  while  we  see  it  proven  in  the 
pure,  sweet  life  of  one  of  the  elect. 


128  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  among  the 
members  of  the  vestry  who  accepted  the  resigna- 
tion of  Senior  Warden  Reade,  are  six  gentlemen 
who,  like  Mr.  Reade,  gave  their  names  to  city 
streets  or  were  sons  of  those  who  originally  did 
so.  These  are  John  Desbrosses,  Junior  Warden, 
and  Messrs.  Van  Dam,  Charlton,  Laight,  Clark- 
son  and  Barclay,  members  of  the  vestry.  No 
other  ecclesiastical  corporation  has  ever  made  its 
mark  so  deep  and  plain  upon  a  city  and  commu- 
nity in  this  country. 

I  close  this  paper  with  an  epitaph  from  a  tomb 
in  the  oldest  and  most  thickly  settled  part  of  the 
churchyard,  that  lies  above  the  North  porch.  The 
stone  marks  the  resting-place  of  two  women,  one 
of  whom  died  at  the  age  of  84  and  the  other  was 
called  away  when  she  had  seen  but  26  summers. 
The  inscription  closes  with  these  remarkable  lines 
of  versification : 

*'  Bouth  old  and  young,  as  well  as  me, 
Must  in  due  time  all  Burried  be. 
Under  this  body  of  cold  clay 
Just  in  my  prime  I'm  forced  to  lay." 

To  which  of  the  two  were  these  Hues  intended 
to  apply  ?     Is  a  woman  in  her  prime  at  eighty- 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 29 

four  or  at  twenty-six  ?  No  man  would  dare  de- 
cide, and  it  might  even  puzzle  a  jury  of  women. 
But  it  sounds  like  the  lament  of  the  younger  of 
the  twain,  who  mourns  the  departure  of  her 
strength  and  beauty.  "  Vanity  of  vanities,  saith 
the  Preacher,  all  is  vanity  I  " 


X. 

It  seemed  a  strange  coincidence  when  I  re- 
ceived from  a  venerable  aunt  of  mine  at  the  far 
West,  who  had  never  read  any  of  the  papers  or  so 
much  as  heard  of  them,  a  letter  which  contained 
some  family  documents  and  one  of  them  the  record 
of  a  burial  in  Trinity  churchyard.  There  was  a 
letter  from  the  young  mother  whom  I  do  not  re- 
member, the  only  letter  of  hers  that  I  have  ever 
had,  and  one  from  my  father  announcing  her 
death  in  France,  the  only  scrap  of  his  handwriting 
in  my  possession.  With  these  missives  came  my 
grandmother's  marriage  certificate,  dated  at  New 
York,  October  29,  18 10,  signed  "  Benj.  Moore, 
Rector  of  Trinity  Church,"  and  written  out  in  full 
in  his  clerkly  hand.  Honors  had  then  clustered 
around  the  scholarly  head  of  the  venerable  rector, 
for  he  was  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  and  President  of 
Columbia  College  as  well.  But  to  me  the  most 
touching  relic  was  a  lock  of  golden  hair,  as  thick 
as  my  little  finger,  cut  from  the  head  of  a  dead 
baby  nearly  eighty  years  ago.  It  is  as  sunny  and 
silken  as  when  it  flashed  like  sunshine  from  the 
tiny  head   of  its  owner  and  was  the  pride  of  a 

130 


WALKS   IN    OUR    CHURCHYARDS.  I3I 

mother's  heart.  The  record  on  the  stained  and 
time-worn  paper  in  which  it  is  enclosed,  reads : 
**  A  lock  of  Alexina's  hair,  cut  off  after  her  Death. 
She  died  at  7  o'clock  A.  M.,  Tuesday,  August  11, 
18 12,  aged  II  months  and  13  days;  buried  same 
day  in  Trinity  churchyard,  Broadway,  New  York, 
a  Httle  north  of  the  church." 

I  have  quoted  this  memorandum  in  full,  because 
it  substantiates  one  of  the  customs  of  the  day  which 
struck  European  travelers  as  strange.  Coming 
from  England,  where  it  was  the  custom  to  keep 
the  bodies  of  the  dead  for  a  week  while  preparations 
were  going  on  for  an  ostentatious  burial,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  Reverend  John  Lambert,  who 
visited  this  country  in  1 807-8  and  put  his  impres- 
sions in  print  afterwards  in  his  **  Journal,"  should 
call  attention  to  the  hasty  burials  that  were  then 
in  vogue  here.  He  says :  "  They  bury  the  dead 
within  twenty-four  hours  ;  a  custom  probably  in- 
duced by  the  heat  of  the  climate  during  the  sum- 
mer months."  Then  he  goes  on  to  speak  of  a 
young  English  gentleman,  who  dropped  dead  one 
evening  at  the  feet  of  a  lady  to  whom  he  was 
paying  his  addresses,  and  was  kneeling  in  sport, 
and  who  was  already  buried  when  he  went  around 


132  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

to  his  house  at  four  o'clock  the  next  afternoon. 
Customs  vary  and  change.  As  far  back  as  I  can 
remember  it  was  not  thought  decent  to  hold  a 
funeral  sooner  than  three  days  after  death. 

But  I  must  hasten  from  Trinity  churchyard, 
where  my  feet  have  already  delayed  too  long.  I 
go  out  of  the  gate  with  lingering  steps,  knowing 
what  treasures  of  antiquity  are  left  behind.  Why, 
yonder  is  a  baby's  tombstone  and  the  little  one 
of  two  summers  is  called  "  Miss  "  on  the  grave- 
stone, and  close  by  is  the  gravestone  of  Mrs.  Ann 
Brovort,  wife  of  Elias  Brovort,  Jr.,  who  is  de- 
scribed on  the  granite  as  **  aged  87  years  and  up- 
wards." Here,  also,  is  the  queer  old  tomb  of  the 
Mount  family,  with  the  curious  anagram  in  stone  in 
one  corner — the  old  tombstone  being  now  cased 
in  a  setting  of  polished  granite  by  the  descendants 
in  that  famous  lineage.  I  do  not  wonder  at  hear- 
ing voices  that  seem  to  call  me  back.  Look  at 
these  brown  sandstone  slabs  that  lie  close  to  the 
northern  gateway.  It  makes  one's  cheek  flush 
with  patriotic  pride  to  read  the  inscriptions.  They 
tell  us  that  under  those  stones  rest  the  remains  of 
John  Morin  Scott,  most  ardent  of  '*  Liberty  Boys  " 
and   one  of   the  men    who    by  word   and  deed 


Walks  iK  our  cttURCUYARDs.        133 

kindled  the  revolutionary  spirit  in  this  city  with  a 
flame  that  never  has  been  extinguished ;  that  next 
to  his  are  the  ashes  of  Lewis  AUain  Scott,  once 
Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  close  by 
sleeps  the  dust  of  the  Rev.  Charles  McKnight,  for 
many  years  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at 
Monmouth,  New  Jersey,  and  of  his  son,  Richard 
McKnight,  "  captain  in  the  American  Army  of 
the  Revolution."  I  know,  too,  where  other  un- 
recorded heroes  sleep,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I 
could  not  take  their  hands  as  comrades  in  the 
other  world  if  my  pen  had  not  done  them  justice 
in  the  world  that  is  yet  mine. 

I  pass  out  of  the  old  into  the  new  cemetery. 
At  least,  it  was  new,  still,  when  one  of  my  ances- 
tors rode  into  New  York  with  Washington,  on  a 
certain  afternoon  in  1783,  and  St.  Paul's  Church, 
which  stood  in  its  centre,  was  yet  without  a 
steeple.  The  first  stone  of  St.  Paul's  was  laid  on 
the  14th  of  May,  1764,  and  the  church  was  opened 
for  public  worship  on  the  30th  of  October,  1766. 
The  site  was  quite  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
The  same  year  in  which  the  foundation  stone  was 
laid,  the  lot  on  which  it  stands  had  been  ploughed 
up  and  sowed  with  wheat.     When  the  building 


i34       WALKS  In  our  churchyards. 

was  finished,  by  the  completion  of  the  steeple  in 
1794,  it  was  considered  the  most  elegant  and  im- 
posing church  edifice  in  the  city.  The  church  lot 
extended  in  a  beautifiil  lawn  to  the  river,  which  at 
that  time  came  up  as  far  as  Greenwich  Street, 
and  seen  from  the  water,  which  it  was  intended  to 
front,  St.  Paul's,  surrounded  by  stately  trees  and  a 
spacious  churchyard,  must  have  been  very  attrac- 
tive to  the  eye.  In  1866  the  centennial  of  this 
chapel  was  observed  with  a  three-days'  festival, 
and  in  1889  it  was  a  most  conspicuous  object 
in  the  centennial  of  President  Washington's  in- 
auguration as  the  handsome  memorial  tablet  on 
its  interior  wall  will  always  bear  witness. 

There  is  no  other  building  in  New  York  so  his- 
torically important  as  old  St.  Paul's.  Here 
General  Washington  worshipped  when  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief he  occupied  the  city  before  the 
disastrous  battle  of  Long  Island.  Here  Lord 
Howe,  the  British  commander,  listened  to  the 
preaching  of  his  chaplain,  the  Rev.  Dr.  O'Meara, 
and  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  Major  Andre,  and  the 
English  midshipman  who  was  afterwards  William 
the  Fourth  of  England,  Lord  Cornwallis  and  other 
royalist  soldiers,  were  of  the  congregation.  Trinity 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 35 

was  burned  to  the  ground  on  the  night  of  the 
British  occupation  of  New  York,  but  St.  Paul's 
not  only  escaped  the  destruction  by  flames  that 
scorched  it,  but  it  was  kept  open  for  services 
without  interruption,  and  patriot  and  tory 
preached  in  its  pulpits  according  as  the  fortune 
of  war  varied.  Here  the  Governor  of  the  State 
had  his  pew,  and  the  legislature  and  common 
council  had  seats  allotted  to  them  and  actually  and 
regularly  attended  worship.  When  New  York 
became  the  capital  of  the  federated  common- 
wealths in  1789,  a  pew  was  also  set  apart  for  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  until  the  new 
Trinity  Church  was  consecrated.  President  and 
Mrs.  Washington  always  set  a  good  example  by 
their  regular  attendance.  It  should  never  be  for- 
gotten by  American  youth  that  on  the  day  of  his 
inauguration,  when  he  had  reached  the  highest 
point  of  human  ambition  and  was  the  object  of 
the  world's  wonder  and  admiration,  George  Wash- 
ington turned  away  from  the  shouting  multitude, 
the  parade  and  the  display,  and  came  to  kneel 
with  the  humility  of  a  little  child  at  the  altar  of 
old  St.  Paul's,  to  receive  the  blessing  of  the 
Lord's  anointed  minister. 


136         WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

Now  that  in  the  course  of  time's  changes  the 
rear  of  St.  Paul's  Chapel  has  virtually  become  the 
front  of  the  edifice,  the  stranger  has  his  attention 
called  to  the  monument  erected  against  the  chan- 
cel window  and  the  two  tall  shafts  that  stand  in 
the  graveyard  on  either  side.  The  central  monu- 
ment, erected  by  Congress  to  the  memory  of 
General  Montgomery,  the  hero  of  the  hopeless 
attack  on  Quebec  in  the  early  part  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, tells  its  own  story.  The  shafts  commemorate 
Thomas  Addis  Emmett,  an  eminent  jurist,  brother 
of  the  Robert  Emmett  who  has  passed  into  his- 
tory as  the  Irish  patriot  and  martyr,  and  Dr. 
William  James  McNeven,  a  distinguished  physician 
who,  as  his  epitaph  says  "  raised  chemistry  to  a 
science."  It  is  remarkable  that  the  three  famous 
men  whose  monuments  stand  sentinel  at  the  gate 
of  old  St.  Paul's,  were  born  in  Ireland,  and  once 
devoted  adherents  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church.  Theirs  are  certainly  the  three  most  dis- 
tinguished names  among  the  myriads  of  natives 
of  Ireland  buried  in  New  York  and  its  vicinity, 
and  the  mention  of  this  fact  carries  a  political  as 
well  as  ecclesiastical  moral.  Married  to  ladies 
connected   with  leading  New  York  families  (Gen- 


Walks  in  oUk  chUrchVards.        137 

eral  Montgomery  married  Miss  Janet  Livingston, 
eldest  sister  of  Chancellor  Livingston  who  admin- 
istered the  oath  of  office  to  President  Washington,) 
their  descendants  wield  a  wide  influence  in  church 
and  state,  and  deservedly  so.  These  ancestral 
monuments  are  their  inspiration. 

There  are  Celtic  inscriptions  on  both  the 
Emmett  and  McNeven  shafts,  that  is  to  say,  a 
transcript  of  the  English  epitaphs  in  the  old  Irish 
tongue.  On  the  west  side  of  the  Emmett  shaft 
the  latitude  and  longitude  are  thus  recorded : 
"40^  42'  40''  N.,  74°  03'  21''  5  W.  L.  G."  The 
**  G  "  presumably  stands  for  Greenwich,  the  point 
from  which  the  reckoning  is  made. 

In  this  same  old  churchyard  a  fourth  native  of 
Ireland  is  interred,  who,  if  he  has  no  memorial 
shaft  to  perpetuate  his  name  and  deeds,  did  more 
for  the  practical  benefit  of  his  fellowman  and  more 
for  the  future  prosperity  of  New  York,  than  any 
other  who  sleeps  in  the  enclosure.  This  was 
Christopher  Collis,  to  whom  the  city  of  New  York 
was  indebted  for  her  first  water-works  and  the 
State  of  New  York  for  the  Erie  Canal.  It  was 
this  busy  inventor  and  tireless  thinker  who  first 
conceived  the  idea  of  uniting  the  waters  of  the 


I3S  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

great  lakes  to  the  Hudson,  who  lectured  on  the 
subject  here  and  addressed  successive  legislatures, 
and  who  inspired  De  Witt  Clinton  to  put  his 
shoulder  to  the  wheel  and  push  the  project  to  its 
accomplishment.  Collis  was  an  originator  always. 
He  had  a  steam  engine  at  work  -pumping  water 
from  the  Collect  Pond  into  his  reservoir  on  Broad- 
way near  Pearl  Street,  at  the  rate  of  417,600  gal- 
lons daily,  ten  years  before  Fulton  had  begun  to 
make  any  practical  application  of  steam  to  travel, 
and  he  had  already  mooted  the  notion  that  the 
same  force  might  be  applied  to  ferry  boats,  in  the 
place  of  horse-power,  with  safety  and  economy. 
His  lectures  on  pneumatics  and  the  steam  engine 
were  an  unfailing  matter  of  interest  and  entertain- 
ment to  the  New  Yorkers  of  the  last  century,  and 
though  they  did  not  benefit  himself  to  any  great 
extent,  they  paved  the  way  for  others  who  reduced 
theory  to  practice  and  thus  permanently  benefited 
the  community.  The  latest  achievement  of  this 
pioneer  inventor  was  the  rigging  of  a  semaphoric 
telegraph  between  New  York  and  Sandy  Hook, 
which  furnished  employment  for  the  closing  years 
of  his  life.  Christopher  Collis  died  on  the  first 
day  of  October,  18 16,  in  the  seventy-ninth  year 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.       139 

of  his  age  and  is  buried  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard. 
His  tombstone  is  an  humble  ode,  for  he  passed 
away  in  poverty,  and  yet  no  man  possessed  more 
friends  when  living  or  did  more  for  the  land  and 
city  in  which  he  lived.  He  was  fully  worthy  to 
be  one  of  the  famous  quartette  whose  records 
.shed  lustre  on  the  churchyard. 

As  I  pass  out  from  under  the  shadow  of  the 
tall  shafts  and  the  presence  of  the  great  dead,  I 
think  of  the  tiny  scraps  of  dust  in  the  old 
churchyard,  to  which  the  golden  lock  of  hair 
belongs.  I  wonder  if  the  little  child  has  grown 
any  older  among  her  Father's  mansions.  Her 
mother  joined  her  before  many  years  had  passed 
and  I  wonder  if  she  knew  her  child  in  glory. 
What  a  wise  little  one  she  must  be,  that  baby 
aunt  of  mine.  Long  ago  her  tiny  feet  could 
find  their  way  through  every  street  in  the  city 
which  is  above  and  knew  the  names  on  the  door 
of  every  heavenly  mansion.  Long  ago  she 
learned  to  speak  in  the  tongue  of  the  angel  host 
and  the  secrets  which  the  wise  of  this  world 
wrestle  over  and  never  penetrate  were  this  child's 
alphabet.  Strange  mystery  of  the  future,  to 
which  this  lock  of  sunny  hair    is    the  key,  and 


140  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

yet  I  cannot  penetrate  it.  Some  day  a  little 
child  will  lead  me  perhaps  on  the  voyage  of  its 
discovery,  and  I  grey-haired  and  once  deemed 
wise  will  acknowledge  my  ignorance  to  the  babe. 
And  so,  as  we  walk,  the  smallest  of  graves 
becomes  the  grandest  of  teachers. 


TRINITY    MISSION    HOUSE. 


XL 

I  HELD  in  my  hand  the  other  day  a  Book  of 
the  Dead.  In  appearance  it  was  an  unimpressive 
volume  in  brown  leather,  whose  records  were 
written  in  various  hands  and  sometimes  with  ink 
that  had  grown  faded  and  blurred,  yet  the 
names  in  its  register  had  a  strange  fascination 
for  me.  They  had  once  stood  for  living  men 
and  women  and  tender  little  children,  who  had 
lived  out  their  span,  had  struggled,  hoped,  loved 
and  died.  Then  after  they  had  been  laid  gently 
in  the  bosom  of  mother  earth,  a  stranger  had 
written  without  a  pang  the  record  of  the  name 
to  which  they  answered  no  more,  of  the  years 
they  had  lived  and  the  place  of  their  burial.  It 
had  all  happened  long  ago,  and  the  hands  that 
had  written  the  brief  histories  had  become  dust 
and  ashes  too.  Spring  after  spring  had  come 
and  gone,  bringing  flowers  and  green  grasses 
and  the  singing  birds;  the  mounds  over  the 
dead  had  become  leveled  with  the  surrounding 
earth,  the  tombstones  had  crumbled  and  the 
mosses  had  eaten  away  their  inscriptions,  and 
living    eyes    looked    through    the    old    books  of 

141 


142  WALKS   IN    OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

names  and  sadly  wondered.  Yet  not  without 
hope.  Ah,  not  without  knowledge  that  one  day 
these  dry  bones  should  live,  and  clad  in  the 
glory  of  immortal  youth  stand  smiling  and  serene 
on  the  ramparts  of  the  city  whose  builder  and 
maker  they  have  already  seen  face  to  face.  This 
was  the  message  that  was  whispered  to  me  by 
the  yellow  pages  and  the  faded  ink. 

There  are  no  records  of  burials  in  the  parish 
prior  to  1777.  The  great  fire  which  swept  away 
the  larger  part  of  the  lower  city  on  the  night  in 
which  the  British  troops  occupied  New  York, 
burned  up  Trinity  Church  and  the  school  house 
in  which  the  books  were  kept  under  charge  of  the 
clerk  of  the  parish.  The  church  was  not  rebuilt 
until  1790,  but  the  churchyard  was  in  use  through- 
out the  time  of  the  British  occupation.  There 
most  of  the  private  soldiers,  sailors,  prisoners  of 
war,  strangers  and  the  poor  were  interred,  it  being 
regarded  as  a  public  burial  place.  The  British 
officers  who  died  during  the  time,  officials  and 
citizens  of  wealth  and  standing  were  buried  in  the 
grounds  around  St.  Paul's,  the  church  itself  being 
set  apart  as  the  military  chapel  of  the  English 
commander.     Many  of  the  tombstones  antedate 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 43 

the  war  of  the  Revolution.  Near  the  west  en- 
trance is  a  stone  to  the  memory  of  James  Davis, 
"  late  Smith  in  the  Royal  Artillery,  who  died  in 
December,  1769,  aged  30  years,"  and  near  it  is  a 
still  older  and  less  legible  slab  which  commem- 
orates John  Jones,  and  perpetuates  this  poetry 
that  evidently  came  from  his  wife's  hand : 

O  most  cruel  sudden  Death 

Thus  did  take  her  husband's  breath, 

But  the  Lord  he  thought  it  best. 

Scattered  around  this  part  of  the  cemetery  are 
memorials  of  the  Somerindykes,  Ogdens,  Nesbitts, 
Rhinelanders,  Thornes,  Cornells,  Van  Amridges, 
the  Gunning,  Bogert,  Onderdonk,  Tredwell,  Cut- 
ler and  Waldo  families.  This  acre  of  the  dead 
had  gathered  in  many  occupants  during  its  first 
peaceful  decade. 

In  the  book  of  burials  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
the  first  recorded  entry  is  that  of  Mrs.  Wittenhall, 
of  whom  no  other  particulars  are  given  than  her 
name  and  the  fact  that  she  was  interred  at  St. 
Paul's.  The  sexton  kept  the  record,  as  is  duly 
narrated  when  it  came  his  turn  to  be  entered 
among  the  dead.     In  the  six  years  that  follow  the 


144  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

entries  make  a  strange  collection,  and  one  can 
read  in  them,  better  than  in  any  history  of  the 
time,  the  desolation  of  the  city  while  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  oppressor.  War  and  the  selfishness 
that  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  human  life  is  then 
held  at  a  cheap  rate,  can  be  seen  pictured  on  every 
page.  Here  are  the  ravages  of  fever  and  small- 
pox, there  the  deaths  from  wounds  and  again 
when  food  is  scarce  and  firing  dear,  the  deaths 
among  the  wives  and  children  of  the  soldiers  in 
garrison  run  up  to  a  fearful  figure.  During  the 
month  of  May  in  that  year  are  recorded  the  burial 
of  Mr.  Nash's  child,  who  died  of  small-pox,  of  a 
sergeant  who  perished  of  his  wounds,  of  an  artil- 
leryman, of  a  soldier's  wife,  of  a  Light  Horse- 
man, and  several  strangers,  but  no  names  are 
given  except  in  the  case  of  a  child  of  an  inhabi- 
tant. Occasionally  the  record  is  varied  with 
burials  at  St.  George's,  in  Beekman  Street,  and 
the  French  church  in  Pine  Street,  and  on  Septem- 
ber 17th,  Mrs.  Stuyvesant,  aged  85,  is  recorded  as 
buried  at  the  Bowery,  in  the  graveyard  which  now 
surrounds  St.  Mark's  Church. 

Of  the  British  officers  who  lie  under  the  turf  of 
old  St.  Paul's,   I   find  the  names  of  Col.  Mungo 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 45 

Campbell,  who  died  of  his  wounds,  and  was  buried 
October  7 ;  Captain  Wolfe,  who  perished  of  fever 
in  the  next  July,  of  Captains  Gibbs,  Walker,  Bond, 
Talbot,  Logan,  Norman  and  Horton,  of  Lieut, 
Iredell  and  Lieut.  Inslee,  who  died  of  wounds 
("  at  Tom's  River,  New  Jersey,"  adds  the  record- 
ing hand  of  the  sexton),  of  Captain  Wilcox,  killed 
in  battle,  of  a  Hessian  Major  and  a  dozen  Hessian 
officers,  all  unknown,  who  were  interred  with 
military  honors  Mr.  Wies,  Commissary- General 
of  the  English  Army,  died  of  the  fever  and  a 
tombstone  was  raised  to  his  memory.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Barton  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Winslow  were  also 
numbered  with  the  dead  and  buried  here.  Hap- 
pily such  as  these  received  mention,  but  when 
pestilence  settled  down  on  the  city  and  added  its 
horrors  to  those  of  war,  the  entries  in  the  book  of 
burials  read  "  a  refugee  woman,'*  "  two  sailors  in 
one  grave,"  "  a  doctor,  aged  thirty-two,"  "  a 
strange  woman,"  "  a  free  mason."  The  last  burials 
entered  before  the  British  flag  was  hauled  down  at 
the  Battery  were  those  of  "a  sailor  lad,  15  years 
old,"  "a  soldier's  wife,  46,"  '*  a  soldier's  child,  8," 
and  the  first  after  the  American  flag  was  unfurled 
over  the  city,  *'  a  child  of  Mr.  Stringham." 


146  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

To  me  there  is  something  extremely  pathetic  in 
these  records.  What  a  strange  gathering  of  friend 
and  foe,  of  aristocrat  and  outcast,  of  youth  and 
age  it  would  be  if  these  graves  could  suddenly 
and  simultaneously  give  up  their  occupants.  The 
tombstones  give  no  indications  of  their  numbers. 
For  every  slab  and  monument  that  stands  in  the 
enclosure  there  are  a  score  of  sleepers  whose  dust 
is  undistinguishable  from  the  ground  in  which  it 
rests.  From  the  month  of  December  in  the  year 
1800,  the  records  are  made  in  the  clear,  clerkly 
hand  of  Bishop  Benjamin  Moore.  I  turned  a  few 
pages  and  came  to  an  announcement  that  in  its 
time  had  convulsed  the  whole  land.  Yet  now  it 
is  simply  a  name  and  date  and  a  careless  observer 
would  easily  pass  it  by.  It  is  under  the  date  of 
the  year  1804  and  reads,  "July  12,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  45,  Trinity  churchyard."  That  is  all 
that  tells  of  the  death  of  America's  greatest  states- 
man. Just  below  is  another  record,  "July  12, 
Mr  Harsen's  child,  St.  Paul's  churchyard."  The 
little  one  without  a  name  was  laid  away  in  its 
grave  on  the  same  day  that  a  multitude  wept  at 
the  opened  tomb  of  Hamilton.  Yet  I  doubt  not 
that  there  were  hearts  that  ached  as  they  turned 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  I47 

away  from  the  mound  that  covered  the  babe. 
My  memory  goes  back  to  the  time  when  old 
St.  Paul's  held  as  large  and  as  fashionable  a  con- 
gregation as  any  in  the  city.  Lower  Broadway, 
the  streets  around  the  City  Hall  Park,  Greenwich, 
Fulton  and  Vesey  Streets,  held  a  large  population 
and  Park  Place  was  a  centre  of  aristocracy.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Parks,  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  was 
then  in  charge,  with  Dr.  Haight  as  his  colleague. 
At  the  doors,  on  Sunday,  were  grouped  as  many 
carriages  as  at  Trinity  and  there  was  a  sort  of 
social  rivalry  between  the  congregations.  The  list 
of  the  pewholders  then  was  something  Hke  a  mod- 
ern book  of  the  peerage,  but  while  many  names 
suggest  themselves  to  memory  there  are  others 
that  have  been  forgotten  and  there  is  nothing  to 
keep  track  of  the  changes. 

In  the  list  which  at  any  rate  would  be  too  long 
to  give  in  its  entirety,  are  found  the  names  of 
Ferdinand  Suydam,  Peter  Goelet,  one  of  the  most 
famous  of  old  New  York  merchants,  whose  pros- 
perity kept  apace  with  the  growth  of  the  city  he 
loved,  Bache  McEvers,  John  H.  Talman,  whose 
daughter,  Miss  CaroHne  Talman,  built  and  en- 
dowed the  church  of  the  Beloved  Disciple,  while 


148  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

Still  an  attendant  at  Trinity  Chapel,  and  John  Q. 
Jones,  President  of  the  Chemical  Bank.  Henry 
Cotheal  was  a  vestryman,  and  he  and  his  son, 
Alexander  I.  Cotheal  occupied  two  pews  at  the 
side  of  the  pulpit.  The  son,  Alexander  I.  Cotheal, 
was  in  early  life  a  teacher  in  the  Sunday  School. 
He  is  still  living,  in  his  eighty-seventh  year,  and 
has  seen  nearly  all  the  modern  growth  of  this 
great  city.  Formerly  a  merchant,  he  has  devoted 
his  later  years  to  study.  Another  group  of  St. 
Paul's  people  were  Anthony  Barclay,  George 
Barclay,  Templeton  Strong,  Benjamin  Armitage 
and  David  B.  Ogden.  Mr.  Armitage  was  at  one 
time  a  teacher  in  the  Sunday  School  and  Benjamin 
M.  Brown  was  Superintendent.  Mr.  Thomas 
Gale  has  still  a  living  representative  at  St.  Paul's 
in  the  person  of  his  niece.  Miss  Sarah  Thorne, 
who  is  still  an  active  worker  in  the  church.  Of 
John  David  Wolfe,  all  mercantile  New  York  knows 
and  of  what  he  did  for  the  city  and  its  masses. 
Another  pewholder  of  the  olden  time  was  George 
Jones,  whose  daughter  became  the  wife  of  Wm. 
Alexander  Smith.  The  old  Jones  mansion  at  82d 
Street  and  Avenue  B,  beautifully  situated  on  a 
blufif  at  the  East  River,  was  torn  down  last  year. 


Walks  in  our  churchyards.        149 

but  enough  of  the  old  family  possessions  on  the 
line  of  the  river  still  remains  to  preserve  the  tradi- 
tions of  Jones'  Wood  and  keep  the  name  in  the 
mouth  of  the  public.  The  list  might  be  indefi- 
nitely extended,  and  include  the  names  of  Good- 
win, Pray,  Spencer,  Lee,  Gerry,  of  Revolutionary 
renown,  McVickar,  Winthrop,  Rhinelander,  Har- 
rison, Edgar  and  others  whose  homes  were  located 
below  St.  Paul's  Chapel  at  the  time  that  the 
Episcopal  residence  of  that  giant  of  the  faith, 
Bishop  Hobart,  was  on  Vesey  Street,  opposite  St. 
Paul's  churchyard. 

Those  were  glorious  days  of  the  church  when 
Bishop  Hobart,  attended  by  his  two  favorite  as- 
sistant ministers,  Drs.  Onderdonk  and  Berrian, 
pervaded  New  York  like  another  St.  Paul.  He 
was  everywhere  at  once,  fervent,  sympathetic, 
aggressive,  and  to  him  more  than  any  other  man 
was  due  the  awakening  which  sent  the  church 
forward  into  the  proper  place  of  leadership.  I 
meant  to  have  stood  beneath  his  monument  and 
spoken  of  him  in  that  sacred  spot,  but  the  place 
does  not  matter,  for  the  presence  of  this  great 
pioneer  prelate  is  felt  at  every  place  where  his 
feet  passed  by.     I  read  some  weeks  ago  the  jour- 


IJO  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYAR£)S. 

nal  of  a  Unitarian  minister  who  came  from  Boston 
in  1820  to  hear  Edward  Everett,  then  a  minister, 
preach  the  sermon  at  the  opening  of  their  church 
on  Chambers  Street,  and  who  fell  in  some  way 
under  the  influence  of  the  bishop.  This  stranger 
in  our  gates  wrote :  "  The  power  of  earnestly  and 
successfully  appealing  to  the  consciences  of  men 
was  possessed  by  Hobart  in  an  eminent  degree. 
In  his  ministrations  the  ardor  of  Peter  was  aptly 
blended  with  the  boldness  of  Paul,  and  honesty  of 
purpose  breathed  through  and  consecrated  all  his 
professional  efforts.  The  Episcopal  Church  has 
rarely  possessed  an  ally  of  greater  power." 

It  is  a  matter  of  rejoicing  to  the  grey-haired 
men  and  women  who  recall  the  glories  of  old  St. 
Paul's  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago,  when  its  walls  and 
spire  had  not  been  dwarfed  by  the  great  structures 
that  how  hem  it  in  and  its  aisles  were  thronged 
by  people  born  within  hearing  of  its  bell,  to  learn 
that  its  veins  are  still  full  of  active  life.  It  has 
become  the  spiritual  home  of  more  than  four 
hundred  families,  the  Sunday  School  numbers  five 
hundred  scholars  and  the  communicants  are  six 
hundred  and  forty-nine.  Not  a  bad  showing  that 
for  a  down-town  church,  and  as  I  write  the  figures 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  ijl 

I  can  well  understand  the  enthusiasm  of  a  young 
man  whom  I  met  in  the  church  one  Sunday  even- 
ing, and  who  told  me  that  he  was  brakeman  on  a 
New  Jersey  railroad  but  always  attended  old  St. 
Paul's.  The  attendance  is  drawn  largely  from  the 
laboring  class,  but  they  are  worthy  successors  to 
the  men  and  women  who  preceded  them  and  have 
grandly  demonstrated  that  there  is  now  no  danger 
of  a  possible  failure  in  the  congregation.  They 
have  the  zeal  and  the  fire  of  Paul  and  are  endowed 
with  his  missionary  spirit.  In  all  the  city  there  is 
no  place  to  which  the  lukewarm  can  go  with 
greater  certainty  of  having  their  old  flames  re- 
kindled. 

As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  when  "  the  third 
English  church  in  the  fields  "  was  opened,  so  may 
it  be  to  the  end ! 


XII. 

It  will  be  fifty  years  ago,  in  August,  since  I 
entered  the  Sunday  School  of  St  John's  Chapel  as 
a  scholar.  At  first,  being  an  urchin  of  tender  years 
I  was  placed  in  a  class  with  my  two  sisters,  in  the 
girls'  school,  with  Mrs.  Lindley  Murray  Hoffman 
as  teacher.  But  I  soon  overgrew  this  gentle  com- 
panionship and  was  transferred  to  the  boys'  de- 
partment in  the  basement  of  the  same  building 
and  placed  under  the  care  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr. 
Sullivan  H.  Weston,  who  was  then  a  student  of 
theology.  The  chancel  of  the  church  has  now 
usurped  the  place  of  the  former  Sunday  School 
building,  which  was  a  stone  structure  three  stories 
in  height,  whose  upper  and  lower  floors  were  de- 
voted to  the  boys  and  girls  respectively  and  were 
furnished  with  square,  white  wooden  forms  for  the 
convenience  of  the  classes.  The  main  floor  was 
fitted  up  after  the  fashion  of  a  chapel,  with  organ 
and  reading  desk,  and  here  we  all  assembled  on 
Sunday  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  to  be  catechised 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wainwright,  whose  dignified  pres- 
ence, set  off  by  a  black  silk  gown  and  bands, 
kept  the  most  of  the  restless  boys  in  order. 

152 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  I53 

Across  the  golden  mists  of  departed  years,  now 
half  a  century  in  number,  I  see  the  throngs  of 
curly  heads  and  rosy  cheeks,  and  my  eyes  are 
young  again  as  I  look  into  their  faces.  To  me 
they  are  ever  fair  and  young ;  to  the  world,  they 
are  dust  and  ashes.  As  memory  calls  the  roll,  I 
can  summon  up  but  half  a  dozen  in  life,  and  they 
are  grey-haired  and  their  cheeks  have  lost  the  radi- 
ant rosiness  of  their  childhood.  It  seems  impos- 
sible that  so  many  seasons  have  rolled  between 
that  day  and  this.  I  can  recall  the  new  clothes 
and  tight  shoes  of  those  Sundays  and  my  uneasi- 
ness in  their  clasp ;  the  broad  leghorn  hats  with 
pink  and  blue  streamers  that  half  hid  the  faces  of 
my  sisters  and  their  companions  on  the  other  side 
of  the  aisle ;  the  sycamores  on  the  outside,  in 
whose  branches  the  orioles  built  their  nests  year 
after  year ;  the  flowers  in  the  adjacent  Berrian  and 
Blenkard  gardens  and  the  vine  that  clambered 
over  the  back  porch  of  my  own  home,  two  doors 
away.  The  peace  and  sweetness  of  those  unfor- 
gotten  Sundays  come  back  to  me,  now,  like  the 
breath  of  home  to  an  exile. 

In  those  days  I  used  to  think  St.  John's  Chapel 
the  handsomest  of  ecclesiastical  edifices  and  even 


154  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

its  pulpit  had  a  stateliness  which  was  most  impres- 
sive to  the  youthful  mind.  The  backs  of  the  pews 
were  high  and  the  doors  were  fastened  by  a  but- 
ton or  a  spring  lock  on  the  inside,  so  that  the 
householder  could  fence  himself  in  and  defy  the 
entrance  of  any  spiritual  tramp.  For  the  latter 
there  were  six  pews  set  apart  at  the  foot  of 
each  aisle,  three  on  each  side,  which  were  slightly 
raised  above  the  rest  and  bore  conspicuously  on 
their  doors  the  legend  "For  Strangers."  I 
remember  that  I  used  to  look  at  the  occupants  of 
these  pews  with  a  sort  of  patronizing  pity,  as  being 
a  sort  of  shabby-genteel  Christians  at  best.  Now 
nearly  every  pew  is  free  and  the  sanctuary  is 
glorious  within  and  resonant  with  music  to  which 
it  was  then  a  stranger.  In  those  days,  pulpit, 
reading  desk  and  chancel  stood  out  conspicuously 
from  the  bare  white  wall  of  the  original  edifice, 
and  were  encircled  with  a  mahogany  chancel  rail. 
It  was  a  triple  affair  and  curious  in  its  way.  At 
the  base  stood  the  altar  or  communion  table  of 
wood  painted  white  and  topped  with  purple  velvet 
and  two  large  purple  cushions  to  hold  the  prayer 
books.  Above  this  rose  the  reading  desk,  which 
was  a  pew  in  which  at  afternoon  service  the  minis- 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  t^$ 

ters  entered,  clad  in  surplice  and  black  silk  gown 
respectively  and  gravely  shut  the  door  and  but- 
toned themselves  in.  The  third  story  was  the 
pulpit,  which  was  on  a  level  with  the  galleries 
and  was  entered  by  a  door  in  the  rear.  I  can 
recall  vividly  the  delight  with  which  I  waited  for 
the  reappearance  of  the  preacher  through  this  door 
during  the  singing  of  the  last  verse  of  the  hymn 
and  my  still  greater  delight  when  it  was  announced 
by  Major  Jonathan  Lawrence,  a  revolutionary  sol- 
dier and  member  of  the  vestry  that  in  consequence 
of  sudden  indisposition  there  would  be  no  sermon 
that  afternoon. 

It  was  an  age  of  upholstery  decoration  in 
churches,  and  while  the  huge  square  windows 
were  in  plain  glass,  and  the  Corinthian  columns  of 
the  interior  were  as  dazzling  white  as  the  walls, 
there  was  a  profusion  of  velvet  and  woolen  fur- 
nishings visible  on  all  sides.  Owners  of  pews 
upholstered  them  in  such  colors  and  materials  as 
they  pleased,  cushioning  the  backs  and  making 
them  otherwise  as  comfortable  as  was  possible. 
The  result  was  as  large  a  variety  of  hues  as  in  the 
woods  in  October.  Some  of  the  old-fashioned 
square  pews  which  still  remained  in  the  side  aisles 


156  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

and  galleries  were  set  out  with  cushions,  footstools 
and  little  tables  to  hold  books,  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  make  children  in  other  pews  envious  of  their 
superior  adaptedness  to  purposes  of  repose.  The 
organ  stood  in  the  rear  gallery  and  the  singing 
was  "  performed  "  by  a  mixed  choir  of  men  and 
women  who  were  hidden  from  view  by  curtains  of 
purple  velvet 

Bold  and  sagacious  minds  planned  the  building 
of  St.  John's  Chapel.  When  the  corner-stone 
was  laid  in  1803  the  locality  was  a  swamp,  over- 
grown with  brush  and  still  inhabited  by  frogs 
and  snakes.  In  front  of  it  a  sandy  beach 
stretched  down  to  the  river  whose  waters  then 
came  up  to  Greenwich  Street.  The  church  was 
completed  and  consecrated  in  1807  ^"^  by  that 
time  the  neighborhood  had  undergone  a  trans- 
formation. St.  John's  Park,  which  fifty  years  ago 
was  the  loveliest  of  the  city's  pleasure  grounds, 
had  been  laid  out  and  houses  were  springing  up 
around  it  and  'attracting  wealthy  landowners  and 
merchants  from  the  neighborhood  of  old  St.  Paul's 
and  Trinity  Church.  When  the  century  had 
reached  its  first  quarter  the  locality  was  the  most 
fashionable  in  the  city,  at  the  second  quarter  its 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 57 

decay  had  begun  and  when  the  park  had  vanished 
the  neighborhood  had  been  given  over  to  the 
stranger,  and  he  came  forward  and  occupied  the 
front  pews. 

Now  I  know  not  a  soul  in  the  congregation. 
But  looking  back  to  my  boyhood,  I  can  recall 
the  faces  that  rose  up  around  our  pew  Sunday 
after  Sunday,  and  they  seem  now  to  have  grown 
old.  Our  pew  was  on  the  north  aisle,  well  up 
towards  the  front.  In  front  was  the  pew  of  Dr. 
Hunter,  our  family  physician,  who  lived  on  Hud- 
son Street,  and  died  of  cholera  during  the  visita- 
tion of  that  epidemic  in  1849.  The  Randolphs 
and  Clifts  sat  still  further  in  front.  At  our  right, 
in  the  middle  aisle,  were  Gen.  Dix  and  his  family, 
the  widow  and  children  of  old  General  Jacob  Mor- 
ton and  the  Schuylers.  The  Lydigs  sat  in  a  large, 
square  pew  on  the  other  side  of  the  north  aisle  and 
nearly  opposite  us.  Everybody  knew  the  honored 
widow  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  the  family  of 
John  C.  Hamilton,  whose  residence  was  on  Beach 
Street.  Bowie  Dash,  then  my  schoolmate,  now  a 
vestryman  of  Trinity  Parish,  lived  at  the  corner 
of  Laight  and  Varick  Streets,  and  came  duly  to 
church,  like    myself   and  all  other  boys  of  the 


158  WALKS   IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

period,  twice  a  day.  But  the  catalogue  of  names 
is  growing  out  of  proportion  to  my  present  space. 
Other  attendants  at  old  St.  John's  were  the  Clark- 
sons,  Hyslops,  Cammanns,  Swords,  Van  Der  Heu- 
villes,  Hoffmans,  Crugers,  the  famihes  of  John  J. 
Morgan  and  Dr.  Hosick,  the  Drakes,  Kembles, 
Manys,  Lorillards,  Ostranders,  Wilkes,  Cotheals, 
Bibbys,  Harveys  and  Lawrences.  A  single  paper 
would  not  suffice  for  reminiscences  of  those 
famous  old  New  Yorkers  who  worshipped  here. 
Not  long  ago  I  came  across  a  description  of  St. 
John's  written  by  a  traveler  who  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  city  in  1839.  He  says:  "St 
John's  is  one  of  the  most  magnificent  churches  in 
the  country.  It  is  ornamented  in  front  with  a 
portico  and  four  columns  in  the  Corinthian  style, 
which  are  based  on  a  flight  of  steps  above  the 
street ;  and  from  the  roof  of  the  portico  and  the 
church  is  built  the  lofty  and  splendid  spire,  to  the 
height  of  240  feet." 

Even  as  these  words  are  set  down,  there  is  a 
whisper  that  the  old  chapel  which  was  the  admira- 
tion of  three  successive  generations,  will  vanish 
before  the  hand  of  improvement  and  that  a  new 
and  more  magnificent  edifice  will  replace  it  on  the 


WALKS   IN    OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 59 

site  that  Trinity  Parish  has  been  holding  for  forty 
years  at  Hudson  and  Clarkson  Streets  for  that 
purpose.  The  only  element  of  uncertainty  is  the 
determination  of  certain  parties,  unfriendly  to  the 
church,  to  have  the  spot  seized  for  a  public  park. 
It  is  the  old  story  of  Naboth's  Vineyard.  An 
adjoining  block,  larger  and  better  adapted  to  the 
purpose,  has  been  offered  at  a  reasonable  figure, 
but  the  political  children  of  Naboth  are  determined 
to  have  that  particular  spot,  by  force  of  law  if 
necessary,  even  though  its  occupation  by  them 
shall  tear  the  dead  from  their  graves  and  compel 
the  destruction  of  the  trees  that  have  twined  their 
roots  around  the  coffins  and  boxes  of  the  buried 
thousands  who  sleep  there. 

There  have  been  no  interments  in  the  grounds 
of  St.  John's  Chapel,  but  at  the  time  the  church 
was  projected,  a  plot  bounded  by  Hudson,  Leroy 
and  Clarkson  Streets  was  set  apart  by  the  vestry 
as  a  place  of  burial  and  has  always  since  been 
known  by  the  name  of  **  St.  John's  Burying 
Ground."  It  is  a  rural  appellation,  suggestive  of 
the  day  when  Greenwich  Village  was  a  distinct 
settlement,  and  its  villas  and  farm  houses  clustered 
in  sight  of  the  little  cemetery.     The  people  who 


l60  WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

attended  St.  John's  Chapel  never  took  kindly  to 
the  little  rustic  cemetery.  Many  of  them  owned 
vaults  in  the  churchyards  of  Trinity  and  St.  Paul's, 
or  elsewhere,  and  not  one  of  the  families  that  I 
have  named  is  represented  in  the  quaint  old 
Clarkson  Street  plot.  Yet  there  have  been  more 
than  ten  thousand  interments  there  and  eight 
hundred  monuments  stand  over  the  dead.  The 
first  entry  on  the  parish  register  is  "  John  Erving, 
aged  35  years,  who  was  buried  October  2,  1814," 
but  some  of  the  graves  are  older  than  that  and 
one  of  the  tombstones  bears  date  of  1803.  From 
1830,  when  burials  were  forbidden  in  all  ceme- 
teries below  Canal  Street,  interments  were  frequent 
here,  but  they  ceased  by  law  some  twenty  years 
later,  and  since  that  time  have  only  occurred  in 
the  case  of  owners  of  vaults.  The  monuments 
are  seldom  elaborate,  but  sometimes  the  tombs 
bear  the  masonic  device,  or  the  old-time  figures 
of  a  weeping  woman,  an  urn  and  a  willow. 

The  most  striking  of  the  monuments  was 
erected  by  Engine  Company  1 3  of  the  old  Volun- 
teer Fire  Department,  to  the  memory  of  Eugene 
Underbill  and  Frederick  A.  Ward,  who  lost  their 
lives  by  the  falling  of  a  wall  while  engaged  in 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  l6l 

their  duties  as  firemen  in  1834.  A  sarcophagus, 
surmounted  by  a  stone  coffin,  bears  on  its  apex  a 
fireman's  cap,  torch  and  trumpet.  One  of  the 
best  preserved  stones  bears  the  inscription: 
"  Captain  Peter  Taylor,  who  departed  this  life 
April  16,  1846,  in  the  73d  year  of  his  age.  Long 
has  he  braved  the  stormy  sea.  He  was  known 
for  skill  as  a  man  of  his  profession.  At  last  he 
has  cast  anchor  in  a  safe  harbor,  the  broad  bay  of 
sweet  repose."  There  is  a  cut  of  a  fouled  anchor 
at  the  head  of  the  stone.  An  old  cracked  and 
broken  brown  stone  slab,  with  the  masonic  em- 
blem of  the  square  and  compass  at  the  top,  bears 
the  record  "  Artemus  B.  Brookins,  April  9,  1824, 
aged  6  months  and  5  days."  Early  initiated  and 
passed  ;  one  day  to  be  raised. 

There  are  not  many  people  of  renown  or  whose 
memory  has  outlived  their  day  and  generation, 
buried  here.  In  one  of  the  vaults  rest  the  ashes 
of  William  E.  Burton,  the  comedian,  whose 
theatre  was  in  Chambers  Street,  and  whose  acting 
was  the  delight  of  the  fashionable  folk  who  lived 
around  St.  John's  Park.  He  died  in  1858  and 
the  last  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  his  luxurious 
home  on  Hudson  Street,  near  Laight.     Here  too 


1 62  WALKS   IN   OUR    CHURCHYARDS. 

sleeps  Naomi,  wife  of  Thomas  Hamblin,  a  dis- 
tinguished actor  and  a  contemporary  of  Burton. 
The  inscriptions  on  the  tombstones  are  often  rustic 
and  quaint,  breathing  an  air  of  simph'city  such  as 
suggests  the  village  life  that  takes  the  world  into 
its  confidence.  Some  of  the  records  are  those : 
**  George  Shepley,  who  fell  a  victim  to  intermittent 
fever,  1 803  ;  Frederick  Gordon,  calico  engraver, 
1 81 2;  John  Black,  bookseller,  1830,  beloved  by 
all  who  knew  him."  And  how  pleasant  it  is  to 
meet  here  in  shadow  land  a  man  who  is  not 
ashamed  to  let  other  people  know  that  he  loved 
his  wife  and  that  her  price  was  above  rubies,  and 
who  has  made  the  stone  to  tell  her  praises  thus : 
*'  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Lawrence,  wife  of  Mr.  John  Law- 
rence, merchant  of  New  York,  a  pattern  of  exalted 
goodness." 

Among  other  interments  are :  **  John  Nichols, 
1822;  Elizabeth  Moore,  1824;  Nicholas  Halsted, 
1824;  Thomas  W.  Ustic,  1845;  Maria  Speed, 
1823  ;  James  E.  Crane,  1829;  Alexander  Dugan, 
1824;  John  Bensar,  1837;  Leonard  Patus,  1836; 
James  Berrian,  1828  ;  Mary  Legget,  181 2  ;  J.  N. 
Whitehead,  1835  ;  Gabriel  Grenolier,  181 3  ;  John 
Summeslays,    1820,  and  Cornelius  Mour,  1808." 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  163 

One  stone  is  erected  by  sorrowing  shipmates  to 
the  memory  of  a  lad  of  twenty-one,  who  was 
'*  drowned  from  the  Sir  E.  Hamilton,  July,  1833." 
Apparently  from  those  records  in  stone  the 
sleepers  in  St.  John's  Burying  Ground  were  not 
classed  when  hving  with  the  "  Upper  Ten  Thous- 
and," but  none  the  less  is  their  tomb  sacred  and 
the  dust  they  laid  down  in  death  deserving  of 
rescue  from  profanation.  The  old  parish  that  gave 
the  ground  for  graves  for  her  children,  has  thrown 
her  loving  arms  around  their  dust  to  protect  it, 
and  if  the  monuments  are  uprooted  the  shame 
of  it  will  not  lie  at  her  doors. 

I  had  hoped  to  finish  my  walks  in  the  new 
Trinity  Cemetery  at  Manhattanville  and  to  speak 
of  those  who  sleep  in  that  beautiful  city  of  the 
dead.  But  the  season  has  passed  and  my  feet 
have  delayed  in  older  haunts.  There  sleep  the 
pioneer  John  Jacob  Astor,  founder  of  the  family, 
the  gallant  soldier  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  hero  of  the 
wars,  who  lived  to  see  his  son  the  honored  rector 
of  old  Trinity,  and  there  were  gathered  under 
the  sod  later  representations  of  nearly  every 
eminent  family  in  the  parish.  There,  too,  amid  a 
group  of  descendants,  sleeps  my  grandmother,  the 


l64  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

grandmother  of  whom  I  have  written  much,  and 
close  by  is  another  friend  of  my  boyhood,  who 
was  more  than  four-score  years  my  senior,  and 
with  whom  I  dehghted  to  talk.  He  sleeps  on  the 
spot  where  he  had  once  fought  for  his  king  in  the 
fierce  skirmishes  that  preluded  the  capture  of  Fort 
Washington.  Old  John  Battin,  cornet  in  the 
British  horse,  married  and  settled  in  this  city  after 
the  war  was  ended,  gave  three  of  his  descendants 
to  the  ministry  of  the  church,  and  died  about  the 
time  I  entered  college,  at  an  age  that  had  passed 
the  century  limit.  He  was  one  hundred  years  old 
when  he  fell  asleep. 

The  soldier  of  the  king  and  the  soldier  of  the 
republic  slumber  peacefully  side  by  side  in  sight 
of  the  Hudson.  There  are  no  enmities  in  the 
grave  and  no  remembrance  of  the  strife  that  is 
past.  The  tiniest  babe  beneath  the  sod  becomes 
the  equal  of  the  mightiest  of  warriors  and  the 
wisest  of  sages. 


TRINITY   HOSPITAL 


XIII. 

In  reading  the  "  Reminiscences  of  Grant  Thor- 
burn,"  not  long  ago,  I  came  across  an  unconscious 
tribute  to  the  faithfulness  of  the  clergy  and  peo- 
ple of  Trinity  Parish  which  was  the  more  striking 
because  it  had  been  penned  by  a  sturdy  and  un- 
compromising Scotch  Covenanter.  Mr.  Thorburn 
was  clerk  in  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  in 
Cedar  Street,  of  which  the  famous  Dr.  Mason  was 
pastor  at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  so 
strict  was  their  orthodoxy  that  he  was  once  **  sus- 
pended from  psalm-singing,"  as  he  phrases  it,  for 
having  shaken  hands  with  Thomas  Paine.  When 
the  yellow  fever  desolated  the  city  in  1798,  he 
remained  after  nearly  everybody  had  fled  and 
ministered  to  the  sick  and  dying.  Under  date  of 
"Sabbath,  September  16,"  he  says:  "All  the 
churches  down-town,  known  by  the  name  of 
Orthodox  and  Reformed,  being  shut  up,  the  poor, 
who  could  not  fly,  were  glad  to  pick  up  what 
little  crumbs  of  Gospel  comfort  they  could  find  in 
the  good  old  church  of  the  Trinity,  which  was 
open  every  Sabbath.  As  the  bell  was  tolling  for 
afternoon  service,  Mr.  T.  and  his  wife,  and  myself 

165 


l66  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

and  wife  (we  had  all  been  married  within  the 
year,)  were  walking  among  the  tombs;  as  we 
turned  the  east  corner  Mrs.  T.,  who  was  a  lively 
girl,  turned  her  husband  around  and  exclaimed  in 
a  sort  of  playful  manner,  '  If  I  die  of  the  fever 
you  must  bury  me  there,'  pointing  to  the  spot 
opposite  Pine  Street.  Next  she  was  reported  and 
on  Friday,  the  2ist,  he  buried  her  there,  and 
where  you  may  see  her  gravestone  until  this  day." 
Again,  in  writing  of  the  terrible  Asiatic  cholera 
in  1832,  he  says  that  the  clergy  of  Trinity  came 
down  as  the  bell  tolled,  on  horseback  or  in  a 
carriage,  **  tied  the  horse  to  one  of  the  trees,  said 
their  prayers,  read  their  sermons  and  so  went 
home  again — thus  they  kept  their  churches  open 
all  the  fever  of  1798."  The  sturdy  old  Cov- 
enanter liked  neither  prayer  book  nor  written  ser- 
mon, but  he  was  too  honest  to  withhold  his  meed 
of  praise  from  the  men  who  did  their  duty  in  the 
face  of  death.  Reading  their  record  I  honor 
the  fearless  preachers  of  the  cross  who  thus  stood 
between  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  I  bless  God 
out  of  a  thankful  heart  for  this  grand  old  parish 
which  has  stood  for  two  centuries  as  a  strong  de- 
fence of  the  faith,  a  refuge  for  the  sick  and  sor- 


Walks  in  our  church  yards.        167 

rowing,  a  witness  to  divine  law  and  order,  and  a 
daily  preacher  of  that  charity  which  thinketh  no 
evil  of  the  man  God  made. 

I  have  dwelt  long  in  the  quiet  paths  of  the 
parish  churchyards  and  lingered  over  the  mossy 
epitaphs  which  are  part  of  the  story  of  the  land 
we  live  in  as  well  as  the  metropolis  that  has 
grown  up  around  them.  It  is  pleasant  to  pause 
under  t*he  trees  and  think  to  what  peaceful  end 
their  unquiet  lives  have  come.  But  even  as  I 
pause,  there  comes  to  me  the  echo  of  the  city's 
roar  and  tumult  and  the  thought  of  the  living  and 
as  it  swells  in  my  ear  I  remember  not  only  what  has 
been  done  by  Trinity  Parish,  since  its  first  rector, 
the  Rev.  William  Vesey  first  held  divine  service  on 
the  sixth  of  February,  1697,  '^^  the  small,  square 
stone  edifice  just  erected  on  the  edge  of  the  little 
city,  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Broad  Way,  but 
what  is  doing  now.  The  story  of  the  dead  would 
be  incomplete  without  the  record  of  the  living, 

"  One  army  of  the  living  God 
At  His  command  we  bow  : 
Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  the  flood 
And  part  are  crossing  now." 

It    is  to   be   repeated  that  the    outside    world 


l6S  WALKS   IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

should  not  take  much  notice  of  Trinity  Parish  or 
measure  the  wide  field  of  its  work,  but  I  wonder 
how  many  of  those  who  take  part  in  its  service 
or  are  numbered  with  its  congregation  understand 
what  is  its  real  relation  to  the  community  at  its 
doors  and  how  extensive  is  its  influence,  direct  or 
indirect,  on  men  and  morals.  Trinity  Parish  is  a 
diocese  in  itself — an  imperium  in  imperio — and  no 
man  can  measure  the  extent  of  its  silent  influence 
for  good,  even  when  all  the  figures  are  marshalled 
before  his  eyes.  The  grain  of  the  mustard  seed, 
dropped  in  a  little  Dutch  city  of  the  New  World, 
has  become  a  great  tree,  whose  branches  reach  up 
to  the  heaven  or  in  whose  shade  the  weary  ones 
of  earth  rest  and  refresh  themselves.  The  one 
church  of  1697  has  become  eight  churches  in 
1892,  six  chapels  in  the  city,  in  addition  to  the 
parent  church,  and  an  additional  chapel  on  Gov- 
ernor's Island  in  New  York  Harbor.  The  first 
chapel  built  by  the  parish,  St.  George's  in  Beek- 
man  Street,  which  was  opened  by  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Barclay,  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  July  2,  1756 
— the  mayor,  recorder,  aldermen,  common  council 
and  other  distinguished  citizens  being  present — 
became  long  ago  an   independent  church,  and  is 


WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  1 69 

now  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  useful  in  the 
city.  Gathered  about  old  Trinity  to-day  are  the 
chapels  of  St.  Paul,  St.  John,  Trinity,  St.  Chrysos- 
tom,  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Agnes.  In  three  of 
these  chapels  the  sittings  are  entirely  free  and  in 
two  others  very  nearly  so,  while  the  doors  and 
pews  of  old  Trinity  are  never  closed  to  those  who 
wish  to  enter  and  worship.  Nor  are  any  of  these 
mission  chapels  for  the  poor,  but  all,  rich  and 
poor,  share  alike  in  the  best  service  which  the 
rector  and  vestry  can  provide  to  make  the  Lord's 
sanctuary  glorious  within. 

Nor  is  Trinity  Parish  in  any  degree  selfish,  or 
bent  on  seeking  her  own,  but  is  mindful  to  an 
extreme  of  her  obligations  to  the  city  in  which 
she  is  as  a  light  set  up  on  a  hill.  St.  Luke's 
Church  on  Hudson  Street,  one  of  the  last  existing 
monuments  of  quaint  old  Greenwich  Village,  still 
receives  an  allowance  of  $10,000  a  year  and  All 
Saint's  Church,  on  the  lower  east  side  is  kept  alive 
and  at  work  by  an  annual  payment  amounting  to 
$7,300.  Other  churches  which  receive  annual  aid 
from  the  corporation  of  Trinity  Parish  are  St. 
Clement's,  West  Third  Street;  Holy  Martyrs, 
Forsyth  Street ;    the  Church  of    the    Epiphany, 


170       Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

East  50th  Street ;  St.  Peter's,  in  old  Chelsea  Vil- 
lage ;  Holy  Apostles,  in  Ninth  Avenue ;  St.  John 
the  Evangelist,  West  nth  Street;  St.  Ann's 
Church  for  deaf  mutes ;  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Philip's 
Church  with  its  colored  congregation  ;  All  Angels 
and  St.  Timothy's.  Donations  and  allowances  are 
also  made  generously  to  other  churches,  missions 
and  objects  of  benevolence,  which  swell  the  ap- 
propriations made  by  the  Vestry,  in  the  last  year 
reported,  for  objects  outside  the  Parish,  to  almost 
forty  thousand  dollars. 

Turning  to  the  parochial  statistics,  which  to 
thoughtful  persons  are  an  unanswerable  proof  of 
the  good  work  accomplished,  they  tell  a  remark- 
able story.  The  communicants  of  the  parish 
numbered  at  the  last  report  six  thousand.  Com- 
parisons are  invidious,  but  if  one  cares  to  take  up 
a  church  almanac  and  make  a  comparison,  it  will 
be  a  matter  of  surprise  to  find  how  many  dioceses 
fail  to  come  up  to  the  statistical  standard  of  this 
quiet  but  sleepless  old  parish.  The  total  number 
of  baptisms  for  the  year  are  1,114;  confirmed, 
504;  marriages,  318;  burials,  617;  Sunday 
school  teachers,  290;  scholars,  3,457;  teachers  of 
daily  parish  schools,   21,   scholars,  692;  teachers 


WALKS  IN   OUR  CHURCHYARDS.  I7I 

of  parish  night  schools,  10,  scholars,  352;  and 
the  industrial  school  report  in  addition  1 1 1  teachers 
and  1,118  scholars.  The  figures  are  eloquent  of 
what  is  being  accomplished  for  the  community 
as  well  as  for  the  church  and  tell  for  themselves 
with  what  sincere  conscientiousness  the  corpo- 
ration acts  as  the  almoners  of  the  stewardship 
committed  to  their  care.  The  collections  and 
contributions  throughout  the  Parish,  amounted  to 
$61,213.25  ;  the  appropriations  by  the  Vestry  for 
Parish  purposes,  to  $44,479.21,  and  the  appro- 
priations for  outside  purposes,  to  $39,278.89, 
making  a  grand  total  for  the  year  of  $144,971.35. 
And  this  answers,  better  than  a  column  of  ex- 
planation, the  question  often  asked  by  many,  as  to 
what  Trinity  Parish  does  with  its  income. 

The  services  and  work  of  the  Parish  are  suffi- 
cient to  give  ample  employment  to  the  seventeen 
clergymen  on  the  staff  of  the  rector,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Dix.  The  work  is  so  varied  and  far-reaching  that 
it  is  next  to  impossible  to  classify  it.  There  are 
connected  with  Trinity  Church,  for  instance,  daily 
parish  and  night  schools,  guilds  for  boys  and 
young  men,  with  a  membership  of  2 1 7  ;  for  girls 
and  women,  with  a  membership  of  302  ;  a  mission 


172       Walks  in  our  churchyards. 

to  Germans  under  charge  of  a  German  minister; 
a  Ladies'  Employment  Society  and  the  Trinity 
Church  Association  which  supports  independently 
of  the  corporation,  a  Mission  House  in  Fulton 
Street  under  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  St.  Mary,  a 
dispensary,  kindergarten  and  training  school  for 
household  service,  a  seaside  home  for  children  at 
Great  River,  L.  I.,  a  relief  bureau  and  a  kitchen 
garden.  All  this  is  done  in  addition  to  the  reg- 
ular religious  and  charitable  work  of  the  parent 
church  and  it  aims  to  reach  every  soul  within  call 
and  to  enlist  it  not  only  in  work  on  its  own  be- 
half, but  in  becoming  a  ministering  messenger  to 
others. 

The  same  spirit  of  activity  pervades  all  the 
chapels  and  their  congregation.  Something  is 
found  to  do  by  every  willing  worker.  Especially 
does  the  hand  that  is  twice  blessed  aim  to  gather 
in  the  little  ones.  There  are  guilds  and  schools 
and  work  and  prayers  for  every  babe  in  Christ ; 
if  one  wants  to  hear  the  praise  of  old  Trinity  in 
strange  places  he  will  hear  it  to  best  advantage  in 
some  of  the  down-town  rookeries  from  which  the 
children  have  been  gathered  into  the  church  and 
made  to  love  its  ways  and  services.     For  the  work 


WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS.  1 73 

of  each  care  is  done  systematically.  Districts  are 
divided  up  and  apportioned  so  as  to  be  thoroughly 
canvassed,  and  all  cases  where  the  ministrations 
of  the  church  are  needed  and  all  opportunities  of 
aggressive  work  are  reported  immediately  and 
acted  upon,  and  in  the  parish  chapels,  the  services 
are  arranged  and  conducted  so  as  to  attract  those 
for  whose  spiritual  welfare  they  are  intended.  Nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  besides  maintaining  five 
beds  at  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  for  the  sick  poor  of 
the  Parish,  the  old  rectory  next  door  to  St.  John's 
Chapel,  which  is  fragrant  to  me  with  the  memory 
of  Dr.  Berrian  and  his  family,  is  the  enlarged  and 
beautified  home  of  Trinity  Hospital,  maintained 
by  the  corporation.  The  Vestry  also  provide  for 
the  free  interment  of  the  destitute  poor  in  St. 
Michael's  cemetery,  Newton,  L.  I.  Thus  in  death 
as  in  life  the  old  Parish  looks  after  her  children, 
parts  with  them  only  at  the  grave,  where  she 
leaves  them  under  the  smile  of  God's  benediction. 
In  closing  this  paper,  I  cannot  do  better  than 
quote  the  following  beautiful  lines  which  appeared 
in  the  New  York  American^  some  fifty  years  ago, 
when  the  old  Trinity  Church  whose  consecration 
was  witnessed  be  President  Washington  in  1 790, 


174  WALKS  IN  OUR  CHURCHYARDS. 

was  in  the  process  of  demolition  and  the  new  and 
grander  church  of  to-day  was  rising  from  its  dust. 
The  newspaper  from  which  this  touching  tribute 
is  taken  was  edited  by  Charles  King,  LL.D.,  who 
was  afterwards  President  of  Columbia  College. 


TRINITY  CHURCH. 


Farewell !  Farewell !  They're  falling  fast, 

Pillar  and  arch  and  architrave ; 
Yon  aged  pile,  to  me  the  last 
Sole  record  of  the  by-gone  past, 

Is  speeding  to  its  grave  : 
And  thoughts  from  memory's  foimtain  flow, 
(As  one  by  one,  like  wedded  hearts, 
Each  rude  and  mouldering  stone  departs,) 
Of  boyhood's  happiness  and  woe, — 

Its  sunshine  and  its  shade  : 
And  though  each  ray  of  early  gladness 
Comes  mingled  with  the  hues  of  sadness, 

I  would  not  bid  them  fade. 
They  come,  as  come  the  stars  at  night, — 
Likti  fountains  gushing  into  light — 
And  close  around  my  heart  they  twine. 
Like  ivy  round  the  mountain  pine ! 
Yes,  they  are  gone — the  sunlight  smiles 
All  day  upon  its  footworn  aisles; 
Those  foot-worn  aisles,  where  oft  have  trod 
The  humble  worshippers  of  God, 
In  times  long  past,  when  Freedom  first 
From  all  the  land  in  glory  burst  1 


WALKS   IN   OUR   CHORCHYARDS.  1 75 

The  heroic  few  !     From  him  whose  sword 

Was  wielded  in  his  country's  cause, 
To  him  who  battled  with  his  word, 

The  bold  expounder  of  her  laws  ! 
And  they  are  gone — gone  Hke  the  lone 

Forgotten  echoes  of  their  tread ; 
And  from  their  niches  now  are  gone 

The  sculptured  records  of  the  dead ! 
As  now  I  gaze,  my  heart  is  stirred 

With  music  of  another  sphere  ! 
A  low,  sweet  chime,  which  once  was  heard, 
Comes  like  the  note  of  some  wild  bird 

Upon  my  listening  ear ; — 
Recalling  many  a  happy  hour, 
Reviving  many  a  withered  flower. 
Whose  bloom  and  beauty  long  have  laid 
Within  my  sad  heart's  silent  shade  : 
Life's  morning  flowers  !  that  bud  and  blow 

And  wither  ere  the  sun  hath  kissed 
The  dew  drops  from  their  breasts  of  snow. 

Or  dried  the  landscape's  veil  of  mist ! 

Yes !     When  that  sweetly  mingled  chime 
Stole  on  my  ear  in  boyhood's  time, 
My  glad  heart  drank  the  thrilling  joy. 

Undreaming  of  its  future  pains  ; — 
As  spell-bound  as  the  Theban  boy 

Listening  to  Memnon's  fabled  strains  I 

Farewell,  old  fane  !     And  though  unsung 

By  bards  thy  many  glorious  fell, 
Though  babbling  fame  had  never  rung 

Thy  praises  on  his  echoing  bell — 
Who  that  hath  seen,  can  e'er  forget 

Thy  grey  old  spire  ? — Who  that  hath  knelt 

Within  thy  sacred  aisles,  nor  felt 
Rehgion's  self  grow  sweeter  yet  ? 


176  WALKS  IN   OUR   CHURCHYARDS. 

Yes!   Though  the  decking  hand  of  Time 

Glory  to  Greece's  fanes  hath  given, 
That,  from  her  old  heroic  clime, 

Point  proudly  to  their  native  heaven  ; 
Though  Rome  hath  many  a  ruined  pile 

To  speak  the  glory  of  her  land, 
And  fair,  by  Egypt's  sacred  Nile, 

Her  mouldering  monuments  may  stand, 
The  joy  that  swells  the  gazer's  heart. 

The  pride  that  sparkles  in  his  eye. 
When  pondering  on  these  piles,  where  art 

In  crumbling  majesty  doth  lie. 
Ne'er  blended  with  them  keener  joy 
Than  mine,  when  but  a  thoughtless  boy 
I  gazed  with  awe- struck,  wondering  eye, 
On  thy  old  spire,  my  Trinity  ! 
And  thou  shalt  live  like  words  of  truth, — 
Like  golden  monuments  of  youth — 
As  on  the  lake's  unrippled  breast 
The  mirrored  mountain  lies  at  rest, 
So  shalt  thou  lie,  till  life  depart. 
Mirrored  for  ages  on  my  heart ! 

In  the  same  spirit  of  reverend  love,  I  stand 
under  the  spire  of  the  grand  temple  of  worship  at 
whose  consecration  I  was  present  nearly  half  a 
century  ago,  and  looking  around  upon  the  six 
stalwart  children  that  own  her  for  a  nursing 
mother,  and  remembering  her  record  of  faith  and 
good  deeds,  I  say,  GOD  BLESS  Old  Trinity  I 


NDEX. 


A. 

Alexander,  James,  70. 
Andros,  .Sir  E^dmund,  37. 
Apthorpe,  71. 

"         Ann,  108. 

Charles  Ward,   106, 
107. 
Armitage,  Benjamin,  148. 
Astor,  John  Jacob,  163. 
Auchmuty,  Rev.  Samuel,  126. 


Bache,  Theophylact,  35. 
Barclay,  Anthony,  148, 

*'        George,  148. 
Rev.  Mr.,  168. 
Barton,  Rev,,  145. 
Battin,  John,  164. 
Bayard,  84. 
Belmont,  83. 
Bend,  G.,  56. 
Bensar,  162. 
Berrian,  Dr.,  149,  173. 

James,  162. 
Bibby,  158. 
Black,  John,  162. 
Bleecker,  36. 

Anthony  J.,  34,  35- 

"  Anthony    Lispenard, 

33,  44- 
"  Jacobus,  33. 

"  Jan  Jansen,  33. 

Bogert,  143. 
Bond,  Capt.,  145. 
Bondinot,  84. 

Bradford,  William,  7,  25,  91. 
Col.  William,  26. 


Breese,  Sidney,  24. 
Brookins,  Artemus  B. ,  161. 
Brovort,  Elias,  Jr.,  132. 

"        Mrs.  Ann,  132. 
Brown,  Benjamin  M.,  148. 

"      Sexton,  46. 
Buchanan,  Thos.,  70. 
Burton,  William  E.,  161. 

C. 

Camman,  Charles  L.,  70. 
Cammann,  158. 
Campbell,  Col.  Mungo,  145. 
Churcher,  Ann,  49. 

"         48. 
Clarke,  Mrs.,  11. 

"       Capt.  Thomas,  57. 
Clarkson,  65,  66,  158. 

"  David,  66,  67. 

David  M.,  66. 

"  Matthew,  66. 

"  Gen.    Matthew,   62, 

65,  67. 
Thos.  S.,  67. 
Clift,  157. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  109,  138. 
Cole,  69. 

Coles,  John  B.,  67,   70. 
CoUis,  Christopher,  137,  138. 
Constant,  D.,  84. 
Cooper,  Thomas  Apthorpe,  9. 
Cornbury,  Lady,  11,  90. 
Cornell,  143. 
Cotheal,  158. 

"        Alexander  I.,  148. 

"        Henry,  148. 
Crane,  James  E.,  162. 
Cresap,  Michael,  81 . 


178 


INDEX. 


Cresap,  Col.  Thos.,  8i. 
Croes,  Bishop,  19. 
Cruger,  158. 

"       John, 12. 
Cutler,  143. 

D.     ' 

Darley,  Arthur  and  Mary,  114. 
Davis,  71. 

"       James,  T43. 
"       Matthew  L.,  109. 
De  Lancey,  James,  24. 
De  Peyster,  66. 

"  Abraham,  125. 

"  Frederic,  42. 

"  Gen.  J.  Watts,  43. 

Desbrosses,  71. 

"  John,  128. 

Dix,  John  A.,  Major  General, 

113,  157,  163. 
Dix,  Rev.  Dr.,  171. 
Drakes,  158. 
Duer,  Lady  Kitty,  71 . 
Dugan,  Alexander,  162. 


Backer,  George  L.,  9. 
Edgar,  149. 

Emmett,  Thomas  Addis,  7,  136. 
Erving,  John,  160. 
Everett,  Edward,  150. 


Faneuil,  Benj.,  59,60. 

"        Peter,  59. 
Farnham,  Col.,  18. 
Franklin,  Benj.,  92,  96. 
Freneau,  Philip,  105. 
Fulton,  Robert,  7,  36,60. 


G. 

Gaines,  Hugh,  94. 
Gale,  Thomas,  1,8. 
Gallatin,  Albert,  36. 
Gates,  Gen.  Horatio,  70. 
Gerry,  149. 
Gibbs,  Capt.,  149. 
Goelet,  Peter,  147. 
Goodwin,  149. 
Gordon,  Frederic,  162. 
Gracie,  44. 

"      Archibald,  70. 
Grenolier,  Gabriel,  162. 
Gunning,  143. 

H. 

Haight,  Dr.,  147. 

Hallem,  Dr.,  53. 

Halsted,  162. 

Hamblin,  Thomas,  162. 

Hamersley,  71. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,   7,  9,  17, 

22,  44,  60,  109,  146,  157. 
Hamilton,  Sir  E.,  163. 

"         Philip,  9. 
Harison,  Richard,  123. 
Harrison,  80,  149. 
Harvey,  158. 
Hobart,  Bishop,  149. 
Hoffman,  71,  158. 

Josiah  Ogden,  123. 
Mrs.  Linley  Murray, 
152. 
"         Martin,  123. 
"         Nicholas,  123. 
Horseman,  Daniel,  25. 
Horsmanden,  Chief  Justice,  60. 
Horton,  Capt.,  145. 
Hosack,  Dr.,  no. 
Hosick,  Dr.,  158. 
Hunter,  Dr.,  157. 
Hyslop,  158. 


INDEX. 


179 


Inslee,  Lieut,  145. 
Iredell,  Lieut.,  145. 

J- 
Jamison,  David,  25. 
Jay,  66,  71,  84. 
"     Governor,  9. 
"     John,  120. 
Jefferson,  36. 
Jones,  David  S.,  9. 
"      George,  148. 
"      John,  143. 
"      John  Q.,  148. 
Johnson,  Sir  John,  42. 

K. 
Kearney,  Gen.  Philip  Watts,  39. 

"        Philip,  7,  17,  42. 
Keimer,  Printer,  92. 
Kemble,  158. 
Kennedy,  Archibald,  42. 
Kling,  Charles,  LL.D.,  174. 


Lafayette,  116. 

Lamb,  Gen.  John,  17,  60. 

Lambert,  John,  i. 

"  Rev.  John,  131. 

Laurens,  84. 
Lawrence,  158. 

"         Augustine  H.,  55. 

Elizabeth,  162. 
"         John,  162. 

Capt.  John,  7,  20,  21, 
26. 
"         Widow  of  Capt.  John 

27. 
"         MajorJonathan,i55. 
Leake,  Major  Robert,  42. 
Leake  &  Watts  Orphan    Asy- 
lum, 42. 
Lee,  149. 


Legget,  Mary,  162. 
Le  Roy,  36. 

"       Herman,  70. 
Lewis,    Francis,    17,  60,    116, 

117,  118. 
Lewis,  Governor,  120, 
"        Morgan,  119,  120. 
"        Gen.  Morgan,  113,  117. 
Lispenard,  36. 

"  Anthony,  33. 

"  Leonard,  35. 

Livingston,  36,  39,  71,  80. 
"  Gertrude,  120. 

"  Jacob,  37,  50. 

Janet,  137. 
"  Maturin,  120. 

Philip,  26. 
"  Robert,  36,  37,  38, 

116. 
"  Robert  C,  36. 

Robert  R.,  38. 
Judge  Robert  R., 

38,41. 
"  Walter,  36. 

Logan,  Capt.,  145. 
Lorillard,  158. 
Ludlow,  Carey,  80. 
"         Catharine,  80. 
"        Charles,   79, 
"         Daniel,  119. 
"         Gabriel,  79. 
"        Gabriel  H.,  79. 
Gabriel  W. ,  79 . 
"        Henry,  79. 
"        Lieut.,  21,  79. 
Thos.  W.,  79. 
Sarah  Frances,  123. 
Lydig,  157. 
Lynch,  Dominick,  69. 
Lyon,  David,  6. 


M 


Many,  158. 
Marion,  84. 


i8o 


INDEX. 


Marisco,  Withamus,  84. 
Mason,  Dr. ,  165. 
Maxwell,  James  Hower,  iii. 
McEvers,  Bache,  147. 
McKnight,  Rev.  Charles,  133. 

"  Richard,   133. 

McNeven,  Dr.  William  James, 

136. 
McNevin,  Dr.,  71. 
McVickar,  149. 
Mesier,  71. 

"       Abraham,  99. 
Peter,  55,  99. 
"       Peter,  A.,  100. 
Milborne,  37. 
Minuit,  Governor,  33. 
Montgomery,  Gen.  Richard  M., 

7,  22,  54,  136. 
Moore,  Elizabeth,  162. 
"       Sir  Henry,  12. 
Moore,    Bishop   Benj.,   56,  60, 

130. 
Moore,  Charity,  56. 

"       Clement  C,  58. 
Morgan,  John  J.,  112,  158. 
Morse,  Samuel  F.  B.,  24. 
Morton,  80. 

"        Gen.  Jacob,  80,  157. 
Mour,  Cornelius,  162. 
Muhlenberg,  Rev.  Peter,  19. 
Murray,  John,  Jr.,  69. 

N. 

Nean,  Elias,  83. 

"      Susannah,  83. 
Nesbitt,  143. 
Nichols,  John,  162. 
Norman,  Capt.,  145. 

O. 

Ogden,  80,  143. 

"       Abraham,  123. 
David  B.,  148. 


Ogden,  Samuel  G.,  119. 
"       Thomas  L.,  123. 
"       Thomas  Ludlow,   122, 
123. 
Onderdonk,  143. 

Dr.,  149. 
Oram,  James,  95 . 
Ostrander,  158. 


Parks,  Rev.  Dr.,  147. 
Patus,  Leonard,  162. 
Perry,  Elizabeth  Champlin,  83. 
"      Commodore  O.  H.,  83. 
Popham,  Major,  121. 
Pray,  149. 
Provost,  Rev.  Samuel,  19. 


Randolph,  157. 
Ravenscroft,  Bishop,  19. 
Reade,  Joseph,  125,  126. 

"      Lawrence,  126. 
Reid,  John,  71 . 
Rhinelander,  143,  149. 
Robinson,  Capt.,  118. 
Rutherford,  66,  71 . 

Walter,  71. 

S. 

Schuyler,  35,  157. 
Scott,  John  Morin,  132. 
**     Lewis  AUain,  133. 
Seymour,  71. 
Shepley,  George,  162. 
Slidell,  John,  55. 
Smith,  Wm.  Alexander,  148. 
Somerindykes,  143. 
Speed,  Maria,  162. 
Spencer,  149. 
Stewart,  36. 


INDEX. 


i8i 


Stirling,  Earl  of,  26,  42,  60,  70. 
Stockton,  Richard,  123. 
Stringham,  145 . 
Strong,  Templeton,  148. 
Sturns,  John,  71 . 
Stuyvesant,  71 . 

"  George  Petrus,  33. 

"  Mrs.,  144. 

Summeslays,  John,  162. 
Sumner,  Bishop,  119. 
Suydam,  Ferdinand,  147. 
Swords,  158. 

Jas.  R.,  97. 
Mary,  98. 
"       Thomas,  96. 
"       Lieut.  Thomas,  98. 


Talbot,  145. 

Talman,  Carolina,  147. 

"        John  H.,  147. 
Taylor,  Capt.  Peter,  161. 
Thody,  Elizabeth,  78. 

Michael,  78. 
Thorburn,  Grant,  109,  165. 
Thome,  143. 

"        Richard,  114. 

"        Sarah,  148. 
Tillon,  84. 
Tredwell,  143. 

U. 

Underhill,  Eugene,  160. 
Ustic,  Thomas,  162. 

V. 

Van  Amridges,  143 . 

Van  Brugh,  71 . 

Van  Dam,  128. 

Van  Der  Heuvilles,  158. 

Van  Cortland,  66. 

Van  Zandt,  Catharina,  iii. 


Van  Zandt,  Jacobus,  1 1 1 . 

"  Johannes,  iii. 

"  Peter  Vra,  no. 

"  Wyman,  no. 

"  Wynant,    Jr.,    55, 

no. 
Verplank,  66,  80. 
Vesey,  Rev.  William,  25. 
Vinton,  83. 

W. 

Waddington,  80, 
Wainwright,  Rev.  Dr.,  152. 
Waldo,  143. 
Walker,  Capt.,  145. 
Ward,  Frederick  A.,  160. 
Warne,  Catharina,  113. 
Washington,  Geo.,  19,  20,  112, 

121,134,  135,  173. 
Watts,  39,  43,  44,  45. 

"      John,  40,  41,  69. 

"       Lady  Mary,  42,  71. 

*'      Robert,  40,42. 
Webb,  36. 
Weston,  Rev,  Dr.  Samuel  H., 

152. 
Whitfield,  George,  26. 
Whitehead,  J.,  162. 
Wies,  Mr.,   145. 
Wilcox,  Capt.,  145. 
Wilkes,  158. 
Willett,   Marinus,    17,   54,  60, 

113. 
Williams,  Bishop,  53. 
Williamson,  Dr.  Hugh,  107. 
Winthrop,  36,  149. 
Wilson,  Bishop,   119. 
Winslow,  Rev.,  145. 
Wittenhall,    143. 
Wolfe,  Capt.,  145. 

"      John  David,  148. 
Wragg,  Mary,  52. 


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